Detail View: University Art Galleries (UMassD): [ Installation of Yvonne Petkus painitngs ]

Re/Figure: gods + monsters

January - March 2007

2007

University Art Gallery (UMass Dartmouth Galleries)

Jennifer Pepper

Organized by Cazenovia College Art Gallery

"Our final show of Fall 2006 semester, "RE:figure: gods + monsters," is a compelling show of seven national artists who make use of the human figure as subject," said Gallery Director Jennifer Pepper. "The theme of this highly charged visual show is the way in which each artist approaches the subject, illustrating the myriad interpretations and perceptions of the human condition identified as social creature, as hunter, as mother, as lover, as son, street warrior, cultural architect, mythological messenger, to name only a few. Some artists adhere strongly to painting traditions, while others make use of 3-D media that straddle walls and sit on top of intimate shelving. This is a show not to be missed." by Cazenovia College. http://www.cazenovia.edu/default.aspx?tabid=782

painting

http://www1.umassd.edu/cvpa/universityartgallery/past/2007/godsmonsters.cfm

07yvonne_petkus_01

07yvonne_petkus_02

07yvonne_petkus_03

07yvonne_petkus_04

07yvonne_petkus_05

photographs

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UMass Dartmouth Art Galleries

Petkus , Yvonne

American

ARTIST STATEMENT: "I believe in making as a means to further understanding or thought and am drawn to the physicality and psychology possible in skin and through spatial manipulation. I work from a place of questioning, a desire to grasp an unknowable something. Through a sculptural approach to painting, my material and imagery shift and evolve to wade through psychological residues resulting in states of ambiguity, fragmentation, and distortion. The strategy is a distancing through physical and cognitive processing (distance, here, defined as using visual cues over realistic representation). I explore subtle destabilization through constant changes and conflations. Boundaries are broken, subverted, challenging language through tweaks and slips, moving just far enough away from the familiar to hopefully cause a pause, a hesitation. Using a repeated, mediated figure and the relationship between that figure and its environment, I aim for suggestion over specificity. It is about making a believable distortion that may lead to deeper content, formed into open narratives that are found through the back and forth, the push and shove, of the act of painting. It is about finding those small epiphanies that re-tell, in a new way, what we have always really known. The underlying mechanism is an acknowledgement, a meditation, on the beauty and horror of the limitations of language. The overarching goal is to use visceral cues and a shifting surface as evidence of the larger human struggle – not in an ideal world but in this world."

http://www.yvonnepetkus.com/YvonnePetkus/Paintings.html

[ Installation of Yvonne Petkus painitngs ]

oil on canvas

painting – oil

ca. 2006

"Yvonne Petkus, a professor from Bowling Green, Ken., expresses her "desire to understand an unknowable something" in five life-size nude self-portraits. The artist depicts herself in "a place of questioning," standing thigh-deep in a vast body of water bounded by heavy horizontal black borders. As the figure reaches out across the waves, she seems to be plumbing the waters for answers in this quest for truth. Her search is not without its scars, as evidenced by the titles, "Collapse" and "Wound. Ms. Petkus paints a thick buildup of multi-colored oil-paint daubs that she compares to the "buildup of experience." The paintings have a heavy coat of varnish that gives them a highly reflective surface, a literal echo of the reflective nature of her subject matter."

Carter , Catherine . Artists probe contemporary issues through traditional methods. , Standard-Times correspondent, March 02, 2007

http://stevenlabadessa.com/home.html

2013/02/02

ajc