Across two floors in the Center for the Arts (CFA) Gallery, over one hundred pieces of art are displayed every year. Curator Anna Wager and Marketing and Communications Manager Emily Reynolds showed me around the exhibit explaining each art piece in detail. The most notable was the second floor containing six artists from Starlight Studio and Art Gallery, which is located in downtown Buffalo.
Starlight Studio and Art Gallery is a studio for artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities. There are six talented artists chosen for this exhibit, each of them bringing a new vision to the gallery.
Kelly Evans, who Reynolds went on to describe as “An artist who uses glitter in a more successful way than I think glitter is used ever,” for example, showcases her personal life with pieces depicting her dog, her parents, her grandmother baking and more.
One artist who stood out the most to me was Lorell Potter. Potter has two pieces in the exhibit: one of them is a wooden ironboard with carvings on it, and the second is a four piece work that comes together to make one big piece. Lorell really shows his personality in the back of the canvas by writing phrases such as “I love Pokemon,” and “Angels are here.” The writing on the back shows how personal the work is to him.
The third artist, Shamika Long’s works are wall sized. She uses a repeating background or pattern of her choosing and layers things such as animals, insects and organs. Reynolds went on to tell me how her work comes to life:
“For years now she has been really working with patterns in the background and that was the thing I was really interested in and so when we were talking to her about like how to take her work to the next level, we started thinking about what it would look like if her patterns were on top of another pattern and [the fact that] she works with bright colors all the time.”
The layering technique Long does in her work creates endless possible outcomes of what you get from her pieces.
If you love animals this next artist is for you. Matthew Sharp’s work is abstract but once you really focus on the painting you can see bunnies and cats on each piece of his work. Sharp’s work brings such color and a playful vibe into the gallery, that every artist can really create whenever they want.
What impressed me the most about Andy Calderon's work wasn't the finished image, but the time that went into it, using a process of layering work over each other. If you find yourself at this exhibit, you can see many things: faces, flowers, different shapes and patterns.
Lastly is Angelina Blackmer. Angelina's work is very different from all the other artists in this exhibit. If you want to escape into a piece of art and stay there, this is the art for you. Her work is designed as daydreaming.
This exhibit not only showcases art but it showcases local artists, while also giving UB students a chance to visit and step outside of their daily routine to experience something inspiring.
Starlight's work is up until Dec. 20, and the gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11am to 5pm.
The arts desk can be reached at arts@ubspectrum.com
