The Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery on campus is welcoming new exhibits this semester, including work from students and guest artists.
On Thursday, Feb. 6 from 4 to 6 p.m. there will be an opening reception for the gallery’s 100 Mile Radius Juried Art Show exhibit. According to Gallery Director Paul McMullan, this event is biannual and features artists from a 100-mile radius of Keene, N.H.
“It’s fun, different people get to come to Keene and people enter from Manchester, Vermont, all over,” McMullan said. “I don’t know how many entries we have but it was probably around 400.”
With hundreds of submissions and limited placements, New Hampshire-based curator Amy Regan decides which submissions will be on display at the gallery. According to the Thorne gallery website, Regan is “dedicated to the accessibility of contemporary artworks made by regionally, nationally, and internationally recognized artists.”
The 100 Mile Radius Juried Art Show will be on display until March 28. Running alongside this exhibit, the work of Keene State students from Professor Miles Warner’s Foundations of Design course will also be on display. According to Warner, the students in the course have been experimenting with making three-dimensional pieces out of cardboard.
“We take an object, a recognizable object, and blow it up at different scales. It’s all about recreating that detail and understanding why something sticks out or why something could be so iconic,” Warner said.
Regarding the 100 Mile Radius exhibit and the student work being displayed alongside each other, Warner said, “It’s really great for students and the community to come together in this space and all get to experience that at the same time, which is really the best of both worlds.”
Guest artist Matt Towers will also be coming to the Thorne, McMullan said. Towers is a professor of ceramics at the University of Hartford and has had work displayed at various exhibitions such as Greenwich House Pottery in N.Y., The Elmhurst Art Museum in Illinois and the Philadelphia Clay Studio in Pennsylvania, according to his website.
Concluding the semester at the Thorne will be the annual KSC Art & Design BA and BFA Exhibition, which will include different mediums of pieces from senior art students.
“In most of their cases it’s their first real display of work with the idea of working foundationally,” Warner said. “It’s a really fantastic thing.”
Warner added the Keene State community should visit an exhibit at the Thorne this semester because the gallery is “really just a good place to hang out.”
Nicole Dumont can be contacted at
ndumont@kscequinox.com
