deep thoughts come in intricate packages at UNH Art Gallery

As you enter the University of New Hampshire Art Gallery, located in the Paul Creative Arts Center, one of the first pieces you notice is a gray sculpture laying flat on the floor. From a distance, it looks like a gray mass of something, but you’re not quite sure what. Upon closer inspection, the “sculpture” takes the appearance of what looks like fuzzy horse-hooves, all lopped off and upside down. Finally, you realize the gray matter is in fact dryer lint and the cone-like objects are translucent tape, wrapped in a circle several hundred times and then plastered with the lint.

The “Networks and Intersections: Finding Meaning Through Complexity” exhibition features the work of four contemporary artists, all with a curiosity about using a system or network of smaller elements to express or construct a unified, complete work.

“Each of the artists is interested in dealing with the representation of form, small patterns, and networks,” says Vicki Wright, director of the UNH Art Gallery. “Also the concept that oftentimes what you see in nature is made from networks and systems.”

Standing in front of Elizabeth Duffy’s sculpture of lint and tape, called “Hooville,” you can turn to either side and see several more of her pieces, which display the molecular-to-molar pattern, all made of recycled materials. To the right stands “Cairn,” a tower that hovers above human height, made of multi-colored cones, with each cone made of hundreds of small paint chips folded origami-like into one another. To the left, on the wall, is an array of pink pencil eraser stubs, a piece of lead stuck into the center of each eraser. The eraser heads form a concentrated center and become sparser as you look toward the edges of the sculpture, titled “Early Bird.”

“I was doing a piece with pencil shavings,” Duffy explains, “and I always try and use all the parts that I construct with. So I made a sculpture out of lead and erasers.” Duffy, a professor of sculpture at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, says much of her art is unified by the idea of repetition and using domestic or everyday objects.

On another wall is a row of oil and pastel paintings. Each painting displays a nature setting (near a brook, in a field, etc.), except for one prominent object: a bright orange or green plastic construction fence. In several scenes the fence is draped across a brook, showing the light and shadows illuminating through it onto rocks and vegetation. The fence curves and twists, as a flimsy fence would when plopped down in the middle of nature. And the fences are different; most of them are orange, several are green, some have square, rectangular, or oval grids, some have thick plastic webs while others are thinner. 

“It’s one of those things that’s around everywhere,” says Louise Hamlin, creator of the fence paintings. “I started looking at them more in the landscape and saw they were interesting objects. They have this wonderful laciness and can sparkle.” Hamlin, a professor of art at Dartmouth College, is interested in the way the fences mold and move to make shapes to encompass the surrounding air, making empty space appear solid. She might set up the fences in a stream or woods, buying them from a highway supply store, or she might find them already set up in nature.

Near the back of the exhibit are several wooden sculptures, both on pedestals and hanging from the walls. One hanging piece, “Codebreaker,” looks like a formation of ancient cliff dwellings, each cave a different sized square and filled at intervals with blocks to create a wooden labyrinth. “Web” is a large ball of interwoven slabs of wooden sticks and pegs, which create a rough-hewn mesh, like a ball of twine. If you look just right through the heart of the ball, you can see the white wall on the opposite side. These sculptures are by Duncan Johnson of Vermont, who works exclusively with wood and tiny nails, to form detailed yet serene formations. The wood used in his pieces is either untreated or rubbed with earth-colored hues of stains and pigments.

Hanging on the back wall of the exhibit is “Ornamentum V,” five rows of pink, yellow, black and gray lids, each one a little larger than a welder’s facemask. Painted on each lid is dynamic entwinement of cells, swirling stripes and strange patterns. The lids are actually the tops to maple-sugaring buckets, their backsides the same cool metal gray as the day they were created. The artist, Esmé Thompson, a professor of studio art at Dartmouth, found the sugaring lids in a second-hand store in Claremont and used them to give her paintings a three-dimensional quality. The paintings look almost organic, like peering into a microscope at the cell system of some exotic plant or animal as they come together to form dense, solid material.

“In nature and in art, the repetition of a simple pattern often organizes complex structures,” Thompson says. “My paintings focus on the correspondence between man-made decoration and design found in nature.”

Many of Thompson’s paintings are a conjunction of her thoughts and inspirations, from patterns of microscopic repetition and biological form found in images of the epidermis, to the influences of Italian and medieval paintings.

Indeed, each painstakingly intricate and detailed piece of art in the gallery nicely uses smaller systems to create a larger, overall picture. And each piece of art, whether sculpture or painting, made of wood, metal, brush-strokes, office supplies or lint, creates a complex yet interestingly dynamic piece of art, which allows the viewer to see the medium the artist started with as he or she progressed to a final product. Each piece of art will leave you asking questions about how it was created, how long it took the artist, and what it was made from. And watch out for the horse hooves as you enter.

Networks and Intersections: Finding Meaning Through Complexity
will be at The Art Gallery at UNH through Dec. 12. Painters Esmé Thompson and Louise Hamlin will be available for a slide lecture and gallery walk to discuss their work, including the pieces at the UNH gallery, Wednesday, Nov. 30 at noon in room A219.

Latin American Graphics: The Evolution of Identity from the Mythical to the Personal
will also be on display through Dec. 12. Gallery hours are Monday through Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 1 to 5 p.m. The gallery is closed Nov. 23-27. For directions or further information, call 603-862-3713.