Light and Shadow: Southeastern Contemporary Art Gallery features sculptor Alex Crosson
Wednesday, June 21, 2017
by: Rene Abadie
HAMMOND – For its summer exhibition, the Southeastern Louisiana University Contemporary
Art Gallery presents “Alex Crosson: The Four Pointed Triangle,” a collection from
the sculptor based in Austin, Tex.
The exhibit is free and open to the public. The gallery is open during the summer
from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday.
Crosson, who earned his Master of Fine Arts from the University of Texas, has
accepted a sculptor position at Tulane University. His exhibit will be on display
until Aug. 18, with the closing reception to be held Aug. 17 at noon.
Interim Fine and Performing Arts Department Head, Professor of Sculpture and
Gallery Director Dale Newkirk said the pieces on display are provocative interplays
of light, shadow, wires and metal. Admirers would do well to consider that everything
they see is by design, and that the very gallery they stand in is also part of the
exhibit, he said.
“How the light affects the space, their luminosity and even the different bulbs
were selected by him to affect the space within the gallery,” said Newkirk. “He changed
the lighting and configured the walls specifically for this exhibit.”
Other pieces illuminated in magenta light are less stark, Newkirk added. Made
up of collected knick-knacks that would likely be discarded as trash by a less creative
mind, these arrangements are more like snapshots of specific times and places, he
said.
“These are found objects that are arranged like haiku,” said Newkirk. “These
are objects that Crosson finds to be aesthetically dynamic and interesting; they’re
kind of fun.”
In addition to the sculptures, Crosson also has several photographs on display.
Upon entering the exhibit, Newkirk said, visitors will be greeted by a sizeable reverse
negative of Lake Pontchartrain, though it could easily be confused for a moonscape
of some kind. Some of Crosson’s more abstract pieces are the pitch black rectangles
printed on glossy paper.
“I like how raw the photographs are; even the paper is curled at the edges, and
they look like they’ve been in the back of a truck for a while instead of a studio,”
said Newkirk. “They’re reverse negatives, so the whites are blacks and the blacks
are whites. That makes them reflect all of the beautiful light patterns that make
a different kind of design on the paper. These photographs are actually, in many ways,
sculptures in and of themselves.”
For more information on this exhibit and others, contact the Contemporary Art
Gallery at 985-549-5080.
