The new art gallery exhibit features different pieces of artwork centered around sustainability. The artwork is done by eight Iowa artists and is display until February 1. Photo by Brittany Feagans
SARAH VAN STAFF WRITER
The newest art gallery exhibit focuses on “being green.”
“Sustainability” is different from other exhibits because it includes artwork from eight Iowa artists.
Scott Robert Hudson, the curator of the exhibit, was excited to put this together.
“It’s become acceptable for us to talk about [sustainability],” he said.
Hudson has been exploring the themes of sustainability for a long time. Now with the help of the “going green” spirit, it has become easier and more popular to talk about these themes.
Hudson started thinking about “sustainability” last fall. It took about a year to get the whole project together. Hudson said it was really important to have different forms of art in the exhibit.
The first part of the exhibit displays an Iowa State Post-Katrina Design Workshop project. Students worked to help rebuild a community center for a Native American tribe, the United Houma Nation. Four giant posters show photos of the community center, the trip to Louisiana and designs made by the students.
There are also five wood-fired pots on display that stand over three feet tall. The artists used several recycled materials for their pottery.
The exhibit also features four paintings by Hudson himself. They are a collection of “Effigy Mound Paintings.”
The Effigy Mounds, Iowa’s only national monument, are burial mounds located in Allamakee County.
The environment has always interested Hudson. Growing up in southern California, Hudson learned about the Santa Barbara oil spill. When he was older, he worked with the Forest Service. He helped maintain the land and encountered several logging companies.
He said it was not rare for some of the companies to break their contracts. Hudson also fought forest fires.
In the middle of the art gallery is a corn stock surrounded by several life-size paintings of corn stocks. Other displays include a wall covered with 2 by 3 inch paintings and a painting of Wounded Knee. For Hudson, The Wounded Knee painting is the most important part of the Sustainability exhibit.
“It’s an example of what happens when everything goes wrong. The dark side of sustainability,” Hudson said.