Art faculty share personal pieces in showcase

The Augustana Art Department’s Faculty Biennial showcased art faculty’s personal art pieces in the Eide/Dalrymple Gallery from Oct. 10 through Nov. 7.

As students and art viewers trickled in, they were met with the works of faculty members Izia Lindsay, Chad Nelson, Scott Parsons, John Henry Peters, Anna Reich, Lindsay Twa and Molly Uravitch – and faculty emeriti Tom Shields and Steve Thomas.

Junior Hannah Woody was one of the many viewers of the art exhibit and felt inspired from each of the artist’s work.

“I was shocked at how intricate each art piece was,” Woody said. “You can really see the amount of time and effort that goes into creating each piece, and the wide variety of mediums used.”

Lindsay Twa, the art gallery director and division chair of humanities, believes events like this are vital for students and their sense of community.

“It’s important for them to see the wide breadth of diversity,” Twa said. “There’s not one way to be an artist in the world. Abstraction to naturalism is a spectrum, not an either-or.”

Twa hopes this exhibition will allow art students to realize that their faculty are also creators and that they experience the same artistic process and struggles in the studio.

Multiple of Twa’s works on display utilize Mokulito, a Japanese wood lithography technique. In this process, she paints color on a wood plank, then continuously carves away patterns and adds more layers of color to create the final effect. 

The process is very time-consuming and technical, but produces a simple-looking body of work, which can be seen in her piece “Antelope Canyon Dreams (Eagle).” 

Izia Lindsay who is originally from Trinidad and Tobago is the current graphic design instructor at Augustana.

He studied graphic design in graduate school at the University of Miami and was a teaching assistant at the same time. This eventually led into his career as a professor.

Lindsay had to deal with such a huge culture adjustment, but feels that Augustana has been welcoming and warm to him. He has been used to operating in his own lane, but thinks it’s necessary to go outside of your comfort zone.

“I always encourage students to go explore outside of your community just to see how people think,” Lindsay said.

After visiting New York City at the age of 12, he took a particular interest in graffiti and acted on this fascination through commissioning art murals. 

“I love to bring art to the people,” Lindsay said. 

Lindsay’s art pieces reflect his lifelong passion for creating murals, where he digitally constructs large and colorful designs which can be seen in his art piece “Carnival Iz We.”

Chad Nelson, the printmaking instructor at Augustana, showcased his pieces as well, some of which were made using the printmaking process of mezzotint – engraving in copper to create shadow.

Art has always appealed to Nelson since he was young, but never saw himself in the academic realm; however, when arriving at Augustana, his perspective changed when a professor told him to view every class he took as an art class.

This new perspective allowed the beauty of teaching to resonate more with his larger connection to art.

“I could care less if somebody wanted to buy it,” Nelson said. “It’s more of a journey of self-exploration, and I kind of learn and work through some of my issues.”

Nelson balances being a professor at Augustana, a full-time teacher at Brandon Valley High School and a graduate student.

Twa also commented on how faculty can struggle to balance being a professor and teaching students while allowing themselves to allot time to work on their own projects. She does not believe that this struggle is in vain because it is helpful for both teaching and the production of art. 

“Our art making informs our teaching and our teaching informs our art making,” Twa said.