The Rowan community gathered in the Art Gallery on Saturday, Nov. 18 for the art exhibit opening of “Blurring the Lines.”

The exhibit features over 20 Rowan faculty artists. The artwork ranges from illustrations to sculptures. Some of the artists include Jan Conradi, Patrick Ahearn, Scot Kaylor, Amanda Almon, Nancy Sophy, Kyle Margiotta, Susan Bowman, Aubrey Levinthal and Jenny Drumgoole.

“Every couple of years we like to showcase the artwork of the art faculty,” said Mary Salvante, curator and Rowan Art Gallery director. “We haven’t had an art faculty exhibition in at least four years.”

Submissions were open to any faculty, both adjunct and full time, who teach art courses in the College of Communication and Creative Arts. Artists could submit up to five pieces for consideration that hadn’t been displayed before at Rowan and were made within the past five years.

“There’s really no way to come up with a title in a show like this that identifies the work,” Salvante said. “So the title really is more about the spirit of why we’re doing the exhibition.”

The Art Gallery was filled with students and the artists featured in the exhibit and their families.

“My theme on this was the idea of sports pennants and how our society values sports teams so much,” said Jan Conradi, professor of graphic design, design history and featured artist. “But what if we value intelligence and creativity and compassion equally?”

Conradi used a series of quotes that express creativity, intelligence and compassion on the flags. She had two pieces featured in the exhibit, “Pennant Race” and “Word Casserole.”
Her “Word Casserole” piece is composed of a casserole dish and a serving spoon covered in text from the dictionary. All the words and definitions are things that she feels represent the political system right now. They include words like gamy, whine and expose.

“It’s really interesting to see [my professors’] work,” said Allison Mosley, a freshman biomedical art and visualization major. “Especially when you’re in class, they’re always telling you what to do. But how do they know what’s right for me as an artist?”

Mosley decided to come to the exhibit because a lot of her professors were featured, like Kyle Margiotta and Amanda Almon. She enjoyed seeing someone else’s work that was from her major, she said.

“Just because we have graphic design being taught over here and sculpture being taught over there, there’s a relationship,” said Salvante. “So the delineation between the two is blurred.”

For questions/comments about this story, email arts@thewhitonline.com or tweet @thewhitonline.