The University of New Hampshire’s art gallery, formerly known simply as the Art Gallery, changed its name this summer to the Museum of Art. The first show under the new name opened on Sept. 5, complete with examples of the museum-quality artwork that comes from within the school. 

Every fall, the Museum highlights work by the studio art faculty members in the Department of Art and Art History who are new or returning from sabbatical leave. The “Art Faculty Review,” with work by Benjamin Cariens, Brian Chu, Craig Hood and Maryse Searls McConnell, runs until Oct. 22, along with a solo show of former faculty member Conley Harris.

The gallery’s new name more accurately reflects its mission to collect works of art, support academic teaching and present outstanding exhibits for the community, according to Catherine Mazur, education and publicity coordinator for the Museum. There are about 1,500 pieces in the Museum’s permanent collection, including work by world-renowned artists such as Rembrandt, Picasso and Andy Warhol, as well as artists who are locally important.

The Museum is located on the Durham campus in the Paul Creative Arts Center, where students attend art classes. Last week, at the beginning of the fall semester, students were lined up outside the center’s Art Supply Store, a walk-in closet-sized space stacked high with paints and paper. Only five people are allowed in at a time.

Down another hall, in the Museum, senior art studio major Ruth Hayden was arranging the Faculty Art Review as part of her fellowship, which provides her tuition in exchange for gallery work. She has an undeclared minor in business and, along with what she’s learning at the Museum, may be more prepared than many artists to earn a living. Her earthy glass and wood beaded jewelry is already being sold at Jenny Wren in Rochester.   

Among the faculty work this fall, Hayden is most impressed with the sculptures created by Benjamin Cariens, an assistant professor of sculpture and drawing at UNH since 2002. The pieces were dismantled when she first saw them, and she was surprised by the way he assembled each pile into a work of art with a cohesive vision. 

Several years after graduating from art school at Boston University, Cariens got his masters in theological studies at Harvard University Divinity School. His sculptures reflect an interest in the function of physical symbols in the expression of religious faith.

Two of the sculptures Cariens has on display are large versions of books, which are often the source of religious instruction. “Katib” looks like an architect’s model of a book made from wood or a book’s skeleton. He uses rough materials like masking tape as decorative details. “Katib II” has thick ropes knotted and pulled through the lined pages. Some ropes loop back and others hang nearly to the floor, suggesting connections between readers who are bound only by the book.

Another sculpture, called “Requiem,” has a ladder in a coffin-like hole in the ground, while other interlocked ladders float above. Cariens says the ladder delivers the souls of the deceased to the heavens. However, a casual observer may see the drop cloth and vegetation and think not of the afterlife, but of a gardener’s earthly struggle against nature.

“Niqab” is in the form of the veils traditionally worn by Indian women, but floats like the sheet of a ghost with eyes peering through. Underneath, though, there’s a red henna pattern. A book below the veil is indented with hand prints. It conjures thoughts of women whose public lives are invisible.

Cariens’ other sculpture at the Museum, “Altarpiece,” is a delicate wooden birdcage with sculptured hands and arms that appear to be conducting a magic trick with handkerchiefs nearby. The books in this piece seem more like spells. There are molded tiles of birds and a single egg hanging in the center of the cage, with cupped hands below it on a book, preparing for the catch.       

The sculptures stir an intellectual response, compelling viewers to interpret them, which in turn makes for a personal emotional response. Cariens said he hopes to reach   people on both levels, but realistically would settle for either one. He said academic studies inspire his creative work.

Cariens said he was not raised to be religious and his interest in religion may in part be filling that void. Now that he is married to a Hindu woman, he has a personal connection to a faith. He said his work has recently become cohesive, as evidenced in the repeated imagery of books. “My work has reached a critical mass around these ideas,” he said.

When teaching art, Cariens wants his students to think of art as self-expression that requires critical and analytical study. He said that process sometimes begins by thinking beyond oneself. “Critical thinking starts not by looking within yourself, but by looking without,” he said.

Also exhibiting sculpture and graphite drawings is Maryse Searls McConnell, an associate professor of art at UNH since 1973. Her drawings on white paper with simple black frames are outlines of mostly organic shapes or their negative space. She overlaps and interconnects these shapes by using tracing paper, and she erases lines that don’t seem necessary.

McConnell said the absence of some lines change the drawings. “I like that things exist and they change other things,” she said. That’s true even if those things no longer have a presence in the drawing.

McConnell said she wants viewers to take time in front of her drawings and get involved in deciphering them. It takes a while, but viewers can make out not just the leaves and flowers, but perhaps bones, hands and even underwater life. “It’s really all about pattern,” she said. “It’s about pattern in our lives.” She pointed to the circles on a shell, the curves in a map of Boston, and the passages of airways in the body as examples.
There’s no shadowing or texture in the drawings, unlike the clay sculptures that are all about shape. In her sculptures McConnell looked at unfamiliar sights from all different directions, picked up parts and pieces and pushed and pulled them. “They’re related,” she said. “I’m always dealing with eccentric shapes and odd holes.”   

In classes, McConnell encourages students to surround themselves with people who have a good eye and will share their thoughts honestly. But, she said, listen to yourself first. “You have to figure out what is your art,” she said. “You learn about your work all your life.”

Craig Hood, a professor of painting and drawing at UNH since 1981, examines the role of the human figure as a narrative image in landscapes. His graphite drawings are a blur from a distance, like a foggy dream or the memory of a black and white photograph. They keep the eye moving, as if waiting to adjust to the light. A girl with butterfly wings in one drawing does not seem out of place.

His smaller drawings, like mug shots snipped from an old newspaper, look like deformed or beaten clowns and give an uneasy feeling. But, Hood says his work isn’t intentionally sinister. “I try to paint and draw people as I see them. I don’t see them as anything in particular,” he said. “People are creepy, let’s face it. It’s not my fault.”

Hood’s oil paintings also achieve a soft quality like that of pastels, appearing fuzzy to the touch. Many of the people look posed, not candid, and many are clowns. Some of the characters are out of place, like lawn ornaments in a quintessential New England setting. However, Hood said there are clowns that live in his neighborhood. “They’re part of the community, too,” he said. He has used circus types at times throughout his career, he said, because of the visual interest of colorful figures and also because they are exaggerated versions of people. 

An associate professor of drawing and painting at UNH, Brian Chu focuses on differences found in color, surface, light and space in his paintings. As a result, his images become understated references, rather than realistic representation of his subjects. His landscapes on display in pastel shades are airy, subtly suggesting houses and trees.

Chu has still life paintings on display, like the green crates for pick-your-own berries, and figure studies of lounging nudes in an impressionistic style. Others have a tribal hint with prominent striped cloth. A portrait of a woman becomes surprisingly colorful with many, short paint applications layered.

Chu also painted many casually dressed figures stopped in mid-action. The faces are a blur and the backdrops are just colorful rooms. These could easily be UNH students rushing to get to class or tossing a Frisbee on the lawn, except there is a sense of panic or fright that was not to be found on campus last week.
Upstairs in the Museum, an exhibit of 20 paintings by Conley Harris is titled “Lyrical Tableaux.” A former UNH professor, Harris is best known for his observational and representational landscape paintings of New England and England. His recent work is a deviation to more intuitive pieces inspired by his interest in India. “I’ve always had many interests beyond the culture right in front of me here,” he said.

The paintings borrow images from the miniature Indian artwork that he collected while traveling, but he recreates them on a much larger scale and restages them in imagined landscapes. He uses vivid sunset colors like gold and orange to put these ancient images in their other-worldly place.

The traditional posed figures are often accompanied by similar outlines that appear like apparitions, overlapping the focal point and adding visual interest. Harris said that unlike his landscapes, these paintings are not logical but are driven by color. “I’ve found a new path for my art work,” he said.

The Museum of Art will host several ArtBreak events pertaining to the new exhibits in coming weeks. On Wednesday, Sept. 17 at noon, there will be a gallery talk with Harris. On Wednesday, Oct. 1 at noon, there will be a talk with Chu, Hood and McConnell. On Wednesday, Oct. 15 at noon, there will be a slide lecture and gallery talk called “From Faith to Form,” on the function of artifice in the expression of religious faith and in recent sculptures by Cariens.