Frank Juarez, a 1998 graduate of Carroll University and owner of EFFJAY PROJEKTS gallery is paying “Tribute” to his former art professors. An exhibition from Sept. 8-30, 2011, “pays homage to three talented and influential contemporary artists/educators: Amy Cropper, Peggy Thurston Farrell and Philip Krejcarek, who have carved a path to self-discovery for many aspiring artists both past and present,” Juarez said. “Often times we go through life without reflecting on where we were, where we are or where we may go. This exhibition is my way of saying thank you.”
Join us on Sat., September 10 from 5-8pm for our opening reception. Then, join us at URBANE, 1231 N. 8th St in downtown Sheboygan for a social from 8:30-10pm.
About the Artists
Amy Cropper’s work explores the circle as both shape and symbol. These explorations started with her experience camping in the Nevada desert in summer 2009. In that setting, she saw that to stand on the earth and look all around places the body in the center of a disk and that the disk’s circumference is set by the distance the eyes can see. Since then, Cropper has begun to think of the circle’s symbolic and diagrammatic use in a variety of cultural traditions. For example, in Buddhism and Hinduism the circular mandala or yantra becomes an aid to meditation. In some Christian art the circle represents eternity or the holy trinity. Also, in meso-American indigenous traditions the circle embodies the cyclical nature of time.
The circle for her has become a way to ponder what extends around the body at any given moment and what lies within at the center. It is a map that attempts to locate one’s existence at a given moment in time and space.
Peggy Thurston Farrell is currently working on a “Passage” series that deals with issues she is confronting in her own life: the passage of time, the passage from full nest to empty nest and the passage of the maiden to the crone. Her body of work not only represents a return to her earlier interest in containment and the contradiction between inner and outer architectural spaces, it is also a return of a focus on printed an collaged surfaces rather than edition prints evident in her earlier work.
Surrealism and the human figure have always been an interest for Philip Krejcarek and his work. He has looked to such painters as Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali for inspiration. He has always enjoyed to juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated elements in a work of art. In photography, he is drawn to such artists as Sandy Skoglund, Jerry Uelsmann, and Arthur Tress. In this series, Krejcarek has investigated the effects of both natural and artificial light within the composition.
