The Figure Five Ways
4/8/10-6/27/10

The Schick Art Gallery at Skidmore College presents "The Figure Five Ways," a figurative exhibition featuring five contemporary artists: Hugo Crosthwaite, Michael Ferris, Jr., Susan Jamison, Sophie Jodoin, and Emily Metzguer. An opening reception will take place in the gallery from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Thursday, April 8, and the show remains on exhibit through June 27, 2010.An artists' lecture featuring Hugo Crosthwaite and Sophie Jodoin will take place April 9 at 11 am in Gannett Auditorium, Palamountain Hall. The reception, lecture, and exhibition are free and open to the public.  

Tijuana-born artist Hugo Crosthwaite is represented by Pierogi, Brooklyn. In a series of large charcoal and graphite works on canvas that explore the immediacy and tactility of drawing, Crosthwaite breaks the white surface with images from a personal narrative that is anguished and intimate, but also bitterly ironic. Crosthwaite's life bordered two cities, and his work straddles the contemporary shine of San Diego and the gritty icon-laden world of Tijuana. Revisiting an adolescent impulse toward the grotesque, macabre, and the obscene, his drawings convey disillusionment, unspeakable urges, humor, and dark frustrations. Crosthwaite has had solo gallery exhibitions in Mexico and the U. S. including recent shows at Pierogi, Brooklyn; San Diego Museum of Art; Noel-Baza Fine Art Gallery, San Diego; and the Mason Murer Fine Art, Atlanta, Ga., among others.  

Michael Ferris, Jr., represented by the George Adams Gallery, New York, makes sculptures out of recycled wood. These forms are then surfaced with a combination of overlaid recycled wood pieces and acrylic pigmented grout. Ferris creates a dialogue regarding the use of recycled materials, rendering an accurate likeness of his subject with an intention to communicate the sitter's complex "inner world" as well. A solo show of Ferris' sculpture opens at Packer Schopf Gallery, Chicago, Ill. in September 2010, and he will be featured at George Adams Gallery, New York in November 2010. In late 2009 a one-person exhibition of his work toured Hope College, Holland, Mich.; Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, Mich.; and Edinboro University, Edinboro, Penn.  

Susan Jamison's allegorical egg tempera paintings are featured at both the Nancy Margolis Gallery in New York and Irvine Contemporary in Washington, D.C. Her paintings include a female figure whose body is decorated with a hot pink, flowered pattern reminiscent of embroidery that is associated with extreme femininity. The paintings incorporate plants and animals, domestic objects, and symbols that reference culturally familiar stories and images. Medical illustrations of the head are appropriated and modified into archetypal images that suggest a dream state. Jamison's work is on exhibit at the Taubman Museum in Roanoke, Va., through May 30. In addition to her exhibitions at the Nancy Margolis Gallery in New York and Irvine Contemporary in Washington, DC, other solo exhibits by the artist include Spanierman Modern, New York, and Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, N.C.  

Works from Canadian artist Sophie Jodoin's series Small Dramas & Little Nothings, part of a larger collection titled The War Series, are inspired in part by contemporary war imagery, graffiti, and comic-style silhouettes. These tiny collages and drawings call into question the numbness with which today's viewers are habituated to observing the carnage of war and domestic violence. Jodoin has had numerous solo exhibitions across Canada, including the Edward Day Gallery, Toronto, Ontario; Battat Contemporary, Montréal, Québec; and Newzones, Calgary, Alberta; as well as many exhibitions throughout the U.S. and Europe.  

Emily Metzguer's photography is engaged with advances in technology that have changed the ways we share information. The artist doesn't believe that still imagery will become obsolete, but realizes that the power a single frame commands has diminished greatly over the past decade because of the sheer volume of imagery streaming from various media, entertain-ment, and interactive industries. Her work challenges the viewer to once again be "still" with an image. Metzguer recently completed an M.F.A. degree at Savannah College of Art and Design.

Schick Art Gallery acknowledges George Adams Gallery, New York; Irvine Contemporary, Washington, DC; Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York; and Pierogi Gallery, Brooklyn for lending multiple works for this exhibition.

Hugo Crosthwaite, "Lion Hunt," 2007, graphite, charcoal on canvas, 72 x 72 inches; courtesy Pierogi, Brooklyn.