Gallery Show and Eva Sutton

7 November - Robert O'Connor and Robert daVies Show at Chester College

The Wadleigh Gallery is pleased to announce two concurrent shows
featuring work by Robert O'Connor and Robert daVies.

The shows will run from November 7 through the rest of the month.

Robert O'Connor works in painting, performance, and video to
investigate issues of difference, discomfort, and despair. O'Connor
often feels overwhelmed with the constant stream of violence and
despair in the world, yet sees beauty in the futility of making a
difference. In addition to installing work, O'Connor will be
collaboratively producing a video installation piece with Chester
College students.

Rope-a-Dope Collaborative was founded in 2007 by painter Robert
daVies and poet Mary Walker Graham to foster collaborations between
artists, writers, and their communities. Through the vehicle of
handmade books, Rope-a-Dope brings together diverse communities in
projects which simultaneously focus on art, literature, literacy,
economics and the environment. We are inspired by the wit and courage
of boxer Muhammed Ali, who was as fearless in the ring as he is
unafraid to address social issues outside of it. Ali spontaneously
created the shortest poem in the English language when asked by a
group of students, "Give us a poem!" Ali replied, "Me, we."

13 November - Eva Sutton
Photographer and Installation Artist

On November 13 at 2:30 pm, Eva Sutton will give a public lecture in the conference room of Chester College of New England's Wadleigh Library. Sutton is a visiting artist, part of the college's Visiting Artist Lecture Series.

Eva Sutton is a photographer and installation artist. Her current work explores the boundary between static images and interactive databases in which users change the visual state of the system. Before becoming an artist, Eva was a software engineer working primarily in the fields of biotechnology and large-scale database management. Her work has been featured at Aperture, SF Camerawork (San Francisco) Exit Art (New York), The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, The Tang Museum, The National Center of Photography in Paris, SIGGRAPH, and the on-line sites Digital Imaging Forum (www.art.uh.edu/dif), www.genomicart.org and www.pbs.org. She has lectured on issues in art and technology at Princeton, New York University, The Cooper Union, the Hong Kong Center for the Arts and the Ludwig Foundation in Havana, Cuba. Currently, Eva is serving as Chair of the Photography Department at the Rhode Island School of Design. She lives and works in New York City.

Compass Rose interviews Eva Sutton

Compass Rose: The role of identity awareness seems to be a reoccurring theme in your work, especially in Hybrids and Dossier 21b. How do you see that concept adding to your art, and why do you think you are so drawn to it?

Eva Sutton: Identity, whether in the biological, psychological or social sense is something that always seems to be profoundly important to us as human beings. The question, “Who am I?” or, in the broader sense, “Who are we?” is fundamental to human existence and it always will be. For me, it’s a very rich place to make work, conceptually speaking.

CR: What are your views on identity re-creation such as cosmetic surgery? What do you feel is the perceived need for such a change?

Sutton: I suppose that all surgery that is strictly cosmetic has to do with conformity to some social norm of what is beautiful or acceptable. Although I’d rather see social norms being redefined to include broader definitions of beauty, I don’t think its reprehensible to “fix’ something that makes you unhappy about your appearance, as long as it doesn’t become an addiction. Its important to realize though, that having a nose job or liposuction can’t really “change your life.” It’s only a surface fix and one has to be clear about that.

CR: What first drew your interest in molecular biology and genetic engineering?

Sutton: I have a science background, specifically as a software engineer. But even before becoming a programmer, I was always interested in science and the scientific method, partly because I come from a medical family where science was part of the daily discourse. I briefly worked with a group of electrical engineers designing systems for genetic analysis that also helped spark a deep interest in genetics and microbiology. (more)