Four artists showcase work this month at Ivy Tech Arts Center

Ivy Tech displays four new exhibits at Waldron Center

By Jaclyn Lansbery | Indiana Daily Student (IDS)

On Friday at the Ivy Tech John Waldron Arts Center, more than 200 people gathered to view four artists’ new exhibits on display until May 27.

The May First Friday artists’ reception debuted the work of Nate Johnson, Ben Pines, Yang Chen and Angela Hendrix-Petry. The artists, who attended the reception, each create different styles of art.

“I think Julie Roberts, the gallery director, did an exquisite job arranging the artists’ work,” said Paul Daily, the artistic director for the center. “We’re always pleased to have the opportunity to showcase more local artists in our galleries.”

Chen’s exhibit “Les Preludes” is displayed in the Treasurer’s Gallery and consists of up-close photographs of nature details, such as dead dandelions or blooming flowers.

The photographs were mounted on a 17-by-42-inch scroll. Chen, who received his masters of fine arts in photography from IU, also designs digital and book art.

“From my impression, and I’m certainly not speaking for the artists and what they intend, but there is almost an Asian feel for the tapestries and the artwork in the pictures and where they look at life,” Daily said.

Pines, a local artist, created 13 paintings for his “Recent Works” exhibit, which are all united by dark blue overtones of people interacting with each other. The people’s features are also undefined.

“The way the working world is so fast-paced, it’s sort of a main function of the art that I want to make, to provide an alternative to that,” said Pines, who worked on the paintings in this exhibit since 2010.

“I need, and I think people need, to be free of constant rush, to accomplish sort of external tasks in order to work within, to think about oneself and to think about the world in a free, meditative way.”

The biggest painting in Pines’ exhibit is “Cookout at Lake Monroe,” which features people conversing at the local lake front.

“I like to take my time when I work, I think it’s very important for me to keep a calm level head as I work,” he said.

Pines said he tries to establish and develop a particular mood during the painting process, and that if the mood doesn’t feel “right” two weeks before the show, the piece will not be completed.

“I was happy with how the show came out, and I’m happy with how the paintings came out individually,” he said.

In the second floor of the Arts Center is Johnson’s exhibit, “Heroes and Icons.” Four of those paintings are private collections of his family and self-portraits. The rest of the paintings, which are for sale, are of famous icons. Johnson used stencils and spray paint to create these pieces.

The fourth exhibit for May is Angela Hendrix-Petry’s photography exhibit called “Journeys with a Simple Girl.” This is a collection of 35 photos, 11 of which are black and white, of nature and Hendrix-Petry’s children, which she said are her muses.

She began shooting pictures three years ago when she, her husband and four children moved from a house in the backwoods of Brown County and into a Bloomington suburban neighborhood.

The year they moved, her husband bought her a camera.

“I used the camera as a tool to help me find what the beauty is in the everyday,” said Hendrix-Petry, whose photographs have been hung at the east- and west-side Bloomingfoods locations and at Thrive Healing Arts, a Bloomington gallery that also offers massage therapy.

Hendrix-Petry said she doesn’t use Photoshop or any other editing techniques to alter her photos.

“That is something that is a little unique in this day and age of digital photography because you can really jack up an image to a level where it almost gets distorted, and you’re kind of lost in it,” she said.

Daily said the Center holds artists’ receptions the first Friday of every month for new exhibits.