By Kyle Kittredge

Staff Writer

The concept of art can be difficult to understand, but UNH student fellows of the Museum of Art talked on selected printmaking pieces, easily explaining how to approach the subject.

The Museum of Art, located in the Paul Creative Arts Center, hosted the ArtBreak Talk on Thursday, Nov. 12, at noon with the students describing works featured in the current exhibit Mind to Hand to Print. 

The student fellows included; Emily Weber, a senior BFA painting student; Ansley Holm, a senior studio arts and German double major; and Jessica Mozdierz, a senior BFA student.

The talk started off with Mozdierz talking about Christo and Jeanne Claude’s print piece, Wrapped Floors, from 1971. 

As for printmaking being an integral aspect, Mozdierz said, “A lot of [Christo’s] works are with prints, and he does prints underneath and they use prints to explore other mediums, as many artists do.”

Mozdierz also explained a bit of background on Christo and his wife, Jeanne-Claude.

“She was credited for a lot of their work, but passed away in 2009, although Christo does continue to make artwork,” Mozdierz explained to the audience.

“I hope you enjoy this work, I certainty like it,” Mozdierz concluded with enthusiasm before taking questions from audience members.

Next up was Holm, who talked about the Italian artist Lucio Fontana and his untitled embossing piece.

“Fontana conceived the spatial movement which was all about uniting technology and the new age, with art, Holm said, “and as far as Fontana is concerned, it is art that transcends all artistic tradition and is a rejection of the illusionistic space that occurs in most oil paintings.”

Fontana’s untitled piece is described by Holm as a canvas that looks textured, but is not.

“It’s additive,” Holm described, “…it’s almost extraterrestrial.”

Fontana’s other work was similar, as shown by prints of his work that Holm passed around to the audience.

Fontana’s initial experiments were canvases, where he would either delicately or aggressively pierce the canvas from behind and “create these very interesting and often intricate almost little craters,” Holm said.

Then Weber described the colored etching of Pol Bury.

Bury “started as a painter but moved towards three-dimensional work,” Weber described.

Weber looked at Bury’s Disque Triangle Lozenge. 

Each of the shapes holds individual meaning: the circle embodied the soul; the geometrical shapes with sides and angles were much more based on human intellect and knowledge.

“I interpret his pieces as sort of narratives of the human experience,” Weber said.

“I see it as a balance of souls verses our knowledge and intellect, and how these two factors create the human experience and create us as individuals,” Weber said. 

However, Bury also “played with gravity and physics in his work,” Weber said, “and he was very interested in those concepts.”

Each student fellow included extensive research on the artists and their works to give the talks, resulting in an eye-opening discussion of how to view the selected works in the exhibit as well as a display of their knowledge.