HOME/STUDIO: 2022 Penn State School of Visual Arts Faculty Show
May 28 - August 28, 2022
Special Exhibitions Gallery, Second Floor
The exhibition HOME/STUDIO features recent work by twenty-five current faculty members in Penn State’s School of Visual Arts and is presented as part of the museum’s 50th anniversary celebration. Exhibitions of work by visual art and art education professors have long been a vital part of the life of the University, with annual group shows occurring regularly at least a decade before the Museum of Art at Penn State opened its doors in 1972. Since the museum’s founding, more than twenty faculty-based exhibitions have been organized by the Palmer Museum of Art.
What sets this faculty show apart from those that came before it is the unprecedented period during which the works were produced; that is, amid the Covid-19 pandemic and the social and political upheavals that marked 2020 and 2021. The works on view were shaped by the disruption to daily life and work routines, the overriding sense of uncertainty that permeated lived experience, and the physical and psychological barriers created by the confinement of sheltering in place. Lines between home and studio blurred, and home became the metaphorical studio for artists and the place where they turned challenges into opportunities and adapted, responded, and reimagined their work, producing new approaches and opening fresh lines of inquiry.
In the gallery you will encounter a range of responses from faculty who explore the emotional and deeply personal to critical commentary on the social and political turmoil of the past two years, as well as work that addresses the public health crisis itself. For some artists staying at home was a welcome solace that slowed down the pace of life, allowed space for reflection, and sharpened skills of observation, while for others the “dual pandemic” of Covid-19 and systemic racism accelerated an urgency to confront these crises head on in their work.
The forty-four works on view in HOME/STUDIO encompass a broad expanse of media and explore the multi-dimensional approaches to pandemic-related issues. Each work is accompanied by an artist’s statement that serves as an inflection point, expanding on its content, process, and meaning. Though the effects of the pandemic continue to impact us and our communities in different ways, together the works by faculty featured in the gallery hold up a mirror, reminding us of our shared experience during this still unfolding crisis.
The exhibition is organized by the Palmer Museum of Art and curated by Museum Director Erin M. Coe.