FGCU Art Faculty Nexus

NEXUS FGCU Art Faculty

August 26 - September 29, 2022

This exhibition is made possible by the generosity of our sponsors:

Gene and Lee Seidler; the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture; and WGCU Public Media

Cover Image: Grace Mikell Ramsey, Teach Us To Number Our Days (detail), 2021, Oil on canvas, 20 x 16 in.

NEXUS | FGCU Art Faculty Exhibition AUGUST 26 - SEPTEMBER 29, 2022 Wasmer Art Gallery

An exhibition of artwork from an institution’s art faculty is an opportunity to discover the depth and breadth of an art program. It is also a time for the students and the community to get to know the faculty for their own work instead of through their instruction. It is a time to learn more about the work of each faculty member and discover how they connect to their larger bodies of work.

I have had the pleasure of working alongside these eleven faculty members over the last eight years. I have seen most of their work in different exhibitions and/or in their studios, but it is only every three years during our faculty exhibition that the artworks stand side-byside in the Wasmer Art Gallery. It is then that I can appreciate their work in relation to each other and better understand the strength of the Art Program through their diverse media and content. It is a shared belief amongst the Art Faculty that the students benefit more by having a rich range of viewpoints in the who, what, how, which, and why questions surrounding the making of art. We see this evident in Senior Projects, the art students’ capstone class group exhibition and Senior Projects exhibitions consistently feature as a diverse representation of artworks as we find amongst our faculty.

The artwork in the exhibition is made of the times we live in and it reflects some pivotal events and experiences of the last few years.

Although many of the events were and are still trying, FGCU in the meantime has turned 25 this year and this exhibition is also celebration of that achievement. The range of content manifests in highly skilled and inventive materials giving us distinct access points for reflection. This opportunity for reflection is well needed as we plan on what we want to achieve in the future.

John Loscuito

gallery director

ARTISTS Patricia Fay Ehren fritz Gerhard James Greco Geoff Hamel Jake Hand Sasha Minsky Jessica Osceola Andy Owen Morgan T. Paine Grace mikell Ramsey Mary Sullivan Voytek

Patricia Fay Professor In the blink of an eye, six million people lost to a “novel” disease.

Waters rise, fires burn, and always the seasonal whiplash of hurricanes spinning towards landfall. Existential threats have become part of our new vocabulary, and with every other human being on this planet we have been swept up in the twin forces of Covid and climate change.

For this exhibition I needed to confront the demons haunting the pandemic age, and to go through my own process of running away and returning. The waters are rising, but when I walk the beaches I have known since childhood I can’t help but feel the beauty of that luminous space between land and sea where every single thing is made more precious by its acute vulnerability. Obsessing over Covid flowcharts doesn’t change the fact that whether one life or six million lives were lost each remains a unique, unrepeatable event. The Covid Memorial Project allowed us to grieve both alone and together, to take a small handful of clay and spread a carpet of porcelain flowers across the FGCU Lawn. The only way I can understand this parabolic world of ours is to hold the flesh of the earth in my hands and to make of it something beautiful. To come back to a single grain of sand, to a footprint, to a flower. To a kind thought and a fragile smile. And to the joy and passion of students, for in them lies hope, and the future.

Patricia Fay, Professor of Art and Art Program Coordinator, joined Florida Gulf Coast University in August 2000. She currently teaches a wide range of courses at all levels in Ceramics plus Senior Project and Art Appreciation; previous teaching includes special topics in Integrated Studies, Caribbean Art and NonWestern Art, as well as study abroad courses in Nicaragua, St. Lucia and Guyana. Her 2017 publication Creole Clay: Heritage Ceramics in the Contemporary Caribbean (University Press of Florida) documents twenty-five years of research and collaboration with potters in the region.

Images: (top to bottom) Patricia Fay, Channel, Aquinnah Beach, 2010, Photograph; Patricia Fay, Feather, South Beach, 2021, Photograph (Opposite page, top to bottom) Patricia Fay, Five Masks, 2021, Porcelain and glaze, each mask approximately 3 x 5 x 1 in.; Patricia Fay, Field of Remembrance, Cathedral of Sky, 2021,Ten thousand porcelain votives installed on the FGCU Lawn March 21 – April 5, 2021; votives individually handmade by a team of more than a hundred faculty, staff and community volunteers January – March 2021 for the Covid Memorial Project.

Photograph by Tiffany Shadden

ehren FRITZ gerhard

adjunct faculty

My imagery depicts an intense encounter with time and place.

It’s the feeling I get while crunching through leaves and branches listening to the air whistle through my nostrils. I can step on a snake, stumble upon a wild boar or end up with a spider web all over my face.

Working somewhere in-between scientific observation and romantic idealism, my goal is to create a living image that breathes and moves. I make large and small scale canvases inspired by the visual energy of artists such as Charles Burchfield and Emily Carr.

Each successive layer of paint is imbued with the joy of discovery, fear for the unknown, and tension between life and death.

My most recent work combines acrylic painting with oil pastel bursting with tropical plants, fruit trees, and edible landscaping.

Over the past seven years, I have been cultivating my yard as a habitat for wildlife, food for my pantry, and imagery for my paintings. I depict the natural world with an emotional range of colors, textures and mark-making. By placing emphasis on the expressive qualities of my medium, I hope to guide the viewer into an immersive experience that overwhelms the visual senses.

Ehren Fritz Gerhard completed his Master of Fine Arts from Arizona State University in 2013. He teaches courses in Drawing and Printmaking at Florida Gulf Coast University. Previous positions include the Director of the Bonita Springs National Art Festival, Gallery Director for the Centers for the Arts Bonita Springs and Gallery Director for the Alliance for the Arts in Fort Myers. He lives in Cape Coral, Florida with his wife, daughter and dog where he maintains an active studio, works on his garden and goes on primitive camping and fishing trips as often as possible.

(Top to bottom) Ehren Fritz Gerhard, Western Sunset, 2019, Mixed media, 10 x 8 in.; Ehren Fritz Gerhard, Poppin Daisies, 2019, Mixed media, 60 x 60 in.; Opposite page: Ehren Fritz Gerhard, Club House (detail), 2019, Mixed media, 60 x 84 in.

JAMES GRECO

adjunct faculty

My images are photography selections from over 6,000 posts for the @FGCU Instagram account that I created and ran for almost ten years. In late 2011, I was introduced to a new social media app called “Instagram”. I used it for several months with a personal account and quickly realized FGCU’s “target audience” (high school students and current college students) were the predominant users. As part of my job in Undergraduate Admissions Marketing, I secured the @FGCU user name and started posting in 2012.

I posted images of our stunning campus, along with information about admissions and student life (with occasional help from student workers). At first it was a small side project with a several postings each week, mostly using my iPhone 4S. After an overwhelming positive response, engaging prospective students and current students; posting quickly became part of my daily routine. I posted content nearly every day till March of 2022, totaling just over 6,000 posts and thousands of story posts.

Initially showcasing the natural beauty of our FGCU campus was relatively easy . In order to continuously improve community engagement I creatively showcased new subjects, locations, compositions, and lighting. My observation and photography skills have expanded through creating this photo journal of our amazing university. During my 10 years at the helm, I grew the @fgcu instagram to over 50,000 followers and acquired millions of likes while engaging our followers. I am very proud of my work, helping to guide the brand and creating the imagery of FGCU. I still proudly supply content to the FGCU social media team.

James Greco earned his Bachelor’s of Fine Art in Graphic Design from UCF in 1998. He began his career at FGCU in 2001 as a graphic designer and has evolved into the official University photographer for University Marketing and Communications. James has been the photography adjunct instructor at FGCU since 2008. James lives in

Bonita Springs with his wife and three children. He enjoys spending time with his family, attending their theater and sporting events, and boating together.

Images on both pages: James Greco, Digital photography images displayed using Exposure platform.

geoff hamel

adjunct faculty

Many of my journeys and excursions of my daily life have now become dutifully transformed and are relegated to fixed destinations.

It could be argued these destinations are advantages for growth, for opportunities of being and becoming within our context of life, liberty and to secure my properties with the overall spirit which this sharing may lead in relation to the needs of our community.

Nonetheless, amid these travels, I cannot help considering feeling I am in a state of queue, waiting somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

As such, during this moment of waiting, I begin to ruminate upon my life perceptions while investigating my surroundings that are curiously stationed with peculiar infrastructures.

The way I paint, and draw has built and builds through time. Asif this visual development has gradually suggested a general frame of reference to germinate a vision reflexive of perceptions about my attitudes how I recognize where I have been, what I have experienced, how I have grown and who I am through the choices I have made. These drawings and paintings are organized inventions from my own mind, responding from intentional conditions and probabilities of unintended consequences, chance, unpredictability, and my mistakes. I’d like to suggest these perceptions through a vista, albeit enigmatic; one where the visual elements collectively convey a sense of how I perceive human interpersonal and intrapersonal dynamics. Though subjects may be recognizable, these scenes may depict or yield improbabilities, paradoxes, and predicaments.

Through these physical and psychological frictions and resistances, of painting and drawing, how I move, which I adore and cherish, strives for an appropriate approximation of these above-mentioned experiences with the eventual hope of an unbelievable reconciliation, hopefully leading me to some sort of affirmation and meaningfulness in my life.

Geoff Hamel received his MFA in Drawing and Painting from Ohio University. Geoff has exhibited regionally, and nationally with a more recent accolade from the Arts Council of Southwest Florida Best in Show, and also winning several awards exhibiting in other shows.

His interests are to work with a variety of media, such as colored pencil, dry pastels, oil paint, and oil pastels, and some acrylic. He has been an Adjunct Instructor at Florida Gulf Coast University since 2006. Geoff has taught Drawing I, Drawing II, Figure Drawing and Painting. He also teaches at Florida Southwestern College, at the Labelle Campus Instructing Drawing and Art Appreciation.

Left to right: Geoff Hamel, Michele at Behind the Buddha, 2022, White chalk and charcoal on Canson Mi-Teintes paper, 12.75 x 19.75 in.; Geoff Hamel, No U Turns, 2020, Mixed media, 32 x 96 in.

jake hand

adjunct faculty

I like dada I like pop I like pattern and decoration and new image work I like pluralism eclecticism hybridization I like the banal raised to new heights I like editing and palimpsest I like pastiche (mimicry w/out irony, mimicry w/out mockery) I like satire irony poetry impossible stories I like discursive discourse I like unspeakable discourse I like the world post-internet with its full saturation I like being everywhere and I like being in-between

Jake Hand is a graduate of the University of Tennessee, first in Architecture then in Fine Arts. He went on to receive his MFA from the University of Florida and exhibits his work nationally. Upon moving to Bonita Springs, Florida in 2005, Jake spent 10 years as the Education Director at the Center For the Arts of Bonita Springs.

During his time there he also taught various adult classes in painting, pastels and fused glass as well as youth camps in various 2D arts, interior design and video. Jake is currently teaching Method and Concepts of 2D Design, Drawing 1 and Painting 1 courses at Florida Gulf Coast University.

Above: Jake Hand, These Friends of Mine (Jackie, Jay, Cassie and Berry): An Exquisite Corpse Project (panel detail), 2022, Acrylic on hardboard panel, 24 x 32 in.; Opposite: Jake Hand, These Friends of Mine (Jackie, Jay, Cassie and Berry): An Exquisite Corpse Project (panels detail) 2022, Acrylic on hardboard panel, 24 x 32 in. each panel.

SASHA MINSKY

adjunct faculty

I truly believe that great things can be accomplished through a series of small things brought together, as Vincent Van Gough once claimed as well. In 2018, during the FGCU faculty exhibition, I took this opportunity to develop a collection of work that would impact the audience who attended the exhibition. I developed a largescale piece centered around the topic of #Typographyhappiness in an effort to showcase the need for more genuine happiness to exist in our community. I crafted over 250 calligraphy cards featuring empowering statements for the audience to take and share with others. The #Typographyhappiness was incorporated into the piece in order to encourage others to take a photo of their selected card and post on Instagram, tag and share with others to see how far these positive messages could travel. While maintaining the Instagram page, it was inspiring to see and read how meaningful these messages were for many. Once again, I invite the FGCU community and visitors to engage with this year’s exhibition and continue to infuse a sense of positivity and happiness through the art of design and typography.

Designing with passion and purpose, Sasha Minsky is a seasoned designer with 20 years’ experience in the field developing innovative solutions for a variety of clients and institutions. Her systematic approach paired with a deep understanding of human centered design are evident in the wide variety of content she creates. From community-based installations to environmental graphic design and carefully curated branded collections, she covers a lot of ground while never losing sight of the unique ability for design to empower and make a positive impact on others. “We design for all” she constantly tells her students, embracing storytelling and balancing color, typography, and design principles to capture the audience’s attention and impact change.

Many of the works Sasha has developed revolve around the topic of embracing harmony and happiness. Visually communicating the importance of wellbeing and kindness shines through in her work and

teaching/design philosophy. Her passion for typography is evident in her day-to-day life - check out her office and kitchen and you’ll see it decked out with quotes, lettering sets and the occasional Pantone color swatch - she continually strives to develop a strong creative community throughout the FGCU campus, local area and internationally.

Opposite page and above: Sasha Minsky, Typography Happiness Installation (detail), 2018, Paper, vinyl and ink, 7 x 10 ft.

JESSICA OSCEOLA

adjunct faculty

Seminoles have resided in the Southeast United States for more than 300 years. Despite the efforts of the US government to eliminate the Seminole, there remains a thriving population throughout Florida. Currently, the FGCU campus is within proximity to two tribal communities but has little to no relationship with them. Even further, there is no statement that formally recognizes Indigenous peoples as stewards of this land and their relationship with their traditional territories. Four pieces of Seminole clothing were created to inspire dialogue centered around land acknowledgment at Florida Gulf Coast University.

You Are Here, is a series of textile clothing using modern Seminole techniques. The FGCU skirt is inspired by the water school’s effort and acknowledgement of local indigenous communities. A kneelength skirt in the FGCU colors, depicts a water-like patchwork design. The USA blanket, created in red, white, and blue symbolizes America and the ongoing need for building relationships and bridging cultural gaps. The final pair of textiles, a male/female rendition in historical style, presents Florida patterns with a matching X patchwork design. The pair are placed on a red dot, like that on a map. You Are Here, is a testimonial of perseverance told though Seminole textiles. Using historical and modern styles, I can offer a narrative of today’s Seminole people within our community and the simple need for land acknowledgement, especially within those communities with thriving indigenous populations.

Jessica Osceola grew up in a Seminole village in Naples, Florida.

Her parents are from vastly different cultural backgrounds, however one important aspect in her upbringing was the creative and artistic talents of her family, which would lay the foundation for her own life and work. Osceola graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University in 2008 with a bachelor’s in liberal arts. Her passion for sculpture and ceramics leads her to attend the Academy of Art University in San Francisco to pursue a master’s degree in fine art sculpture. Osceola currently works as an FGCU art adjunct and lives in Estero, FL.

Opposite page: Jessica Osceola, The USA Blanket, 2022, Textile, 60 x 36 x 8 in., Photo by Sharon Mammano Left to right: Jessica Osceola, You Are Here, 2021, Textile, 68 x 36 x 20 in., Jessica Osceola, The FGCU Skirt, 2022, Textile, 60 x 24 x 24 in., Photos by Sharon Mammano

andy owen

Professor

The waters surrounding Southwest Florida have inspired my work for roughly 50 years. Currents, tides, shorelines, rains, ocean surfaces and depths have all played an important role in this body of work. Recent works are inspired by the 10,000 Islands.

I often seek refuge in these islands, the peaceful waterways and isolation they offer feeds my spirit. Images of battered shorelines left behind in hurricane Irma’s path are rich subjects, the stripped tress revealing a skeletal dance of line while also serving as a reminder of the fragility of the ecosystem when faced with the overwhelming power of change My work is motivated by the idea that the natural environment is a complex and meaningful balance of the sublime that is essential to our well being rather than a commodity to be parsed, exhausted and profited from.

Andy Owen is a Professor of Art at Florida Gulf Coast University. He earned a BFA from the University of Florida and a MFA from the University of Arizona, both in printmaking. Andy currently teaches multiple levels of drawing and non-toxic methods of printmaking at FGCU. Throughout his career, his work has received numerous awards and has been regularly exhibited in regional, national and international exhibitions.

Opposite page: Andy Owen, Panther Key III, 2019, Solarplate intaglio, 12 x 16 in.

This page, top to bottom: Andy Owen, Dismal Key II, 2019, Solarplate intaglio, 8 x 10 in.; Andy Owen, Solace, 2022, Woodcut, 16 x 40 in.

morgan t. paine

associate professor

My activity as an artist is concerned with what it means to make a painting. Painting for me is a process, dependent upon specific traditions of artistic practice. The results encourage viewers to look and think about ideas, the physical world and our human relationship to both. I have tried to remove everything not absolutely necessary from my activity as a painter. My work comes from the reductivist, essentialist perspective that I have chosen to pursue. The paintings require physical activity as each day’s effort generates a layer that covers the previous effort and anticipates the next day’s effort. The paint is brushed upon the chosen surface in a systematic manner, generally from left to right, top to bottom. The paintings start because I need to work in order to be a painter and a paintable object that has become compelling to me presents itself. The work ends when the circumstances of the paintable object fundamentally conclude or change.

Morgan T. Paine was born in Waukesha, Wisconsin in 1954. He attended Layfayette College (studying engineering) and also the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (studying art) prior to graduating from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, in 1977 with a B.A. in Studio Art. In 1980, he received his M.F.A. in Painting with Honors from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. He was an Instructor of Art and Director of Exhibitions at the Pennsylvania State University from 1981 to 1984. In 1984, Paine became Assistant Professor of Art, Gallery Director and Coordinator of Art at Alverno College in Milwaukee, WI. He was hired as as the founding faculty member, Program Leader for Art Program and Associate Professor, moving with his wife and two sons to FGCU in 1997. He paints daily and has done so since 1975.

Above: Morgan T. Paine, Spanned Skeleton House Armature, 2019-2021, Regular gloss gel on found metal frame with cow magnets and brushes, 21 x 11 x 11.5 in.; Opposite page: Morgan T. Paine, Spanned Loves in the Context of Measurement, 2021, Regular gloss gel on gilded plastic with four-sided ruler slide template tool, mounted on tropical wood with hardware and brush, 7.5 x 11.5 x 1.5 in.

GRACE MIKELL RAMSEY

assistant professor

My art has always been rooted in the human form—I believe that the body can function not just as a powerful depiction of physicality but also as the truest expression of self. Working loosely from my own experiences, memories, musings, introspections, and fears, my paintings function in a dreamlike narrative space between fantasy and reality.

I explore themes of girlhood and womanhood, using elements of ritual, magic and religious iconography to give color and light to what is kept hidden or left unsaid. These are the secrets of an insular world, but if there are mysteries in these scenes, there may also be moments of uncanny familiarity.

Though my work arises from my private thoughts, I hope that it opens itself to possibility. The narrative and emotional threads grow richer and more complicated with every viewer who might think, for a moment, I’ve seen or felt or dreamed this before.

Grace Mikell Ramsey lives and works in Fort Myers, Florida and is an Assistant Professor of Art at FGCU. She received an MFA. in Painting and Drawing from Tulane University in 2012 and was awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant Award that year. In 2014 she was awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation Career Opportunity Grant. Her work has been shown at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans, the Historic Arkansas Museum in Little Rock, the University of Alabama at Birmingham Art Gallery and elsewhere. She was awarded the ESKFF residency at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, New Jersey in Fall 2020 and Spring 2021.

Above: Grace Mikell Ramsey, Teach Us To Number Our Days, 2021, Oil on canvas, 20 x 16 in.; Opposite page: Grace Mikell Ramsey, Latch, 2019, Oil on canvas, 48 x 60 in.

mary sullivan voytek

associate professor

This show is an opportunity for me to reflect on the continuum and pivot points in my career as a sculptor. My timeline includes a diversity of media: neon, various metals and found objects, and a unity of exploration of our relationship to the natural, spiritual, and man-made worlds. My works have arisen from central themes of thought processes over time, shifting, merging, undulating, pivoting, and returning. The ephemeral aspects of nature have always captivated me as deeply rooted lines of continuity within our collective psyche. In combining neon light and metals I have sought the connection between the ethereal and the substantial within the wholeness of the existential. Nature, even on its surface, tells the direct and simple truth of our existence. I love walking at night and seeing the windows of the houses I pass, fascinated by the glow emanating from within through the glass, a contemplation on the light within all plants, all animals, all structures and ecosystems, all humanity and planetary beings.

In my work, I hope to touch that illumination within the viewer and share a connection that transcends language.

Mary Sullivan Voytek is an Associate Professor of Sculpture at Florida Gulf Coast University. She has an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design and a BFA from California College of Art. Prior to joining the faculty of FGCU in 2004, she was a visiting instructor at Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design. She has exhibited her work in major galleries in San Francisco, Chicago, Miami, Santa Fe, Atlanta, Washington D.C., and Taiwan. In addition to her decades of work as a sculptor, areas of special interest also include environmental and site-specific public art installation.

Above: Mary Sullivan Voytek, Eightfold Walk of Life, 2022, Aluminum, 54 x 34 x 3 in.; Opposite page, left to right: Mary Sullivan Voytek, AIR (Tillandsia Variabilis), 2018, Aluminum, 30 x 18 x 2 in.; Mary Sullivan Voytek, Recorded Points on Life’s Continuum, 2014, Aluminum and silver, 16 x 10 x 11 in.

Director John Loscuito Assistant Curator/Graphic Designer Anica Sturdivant Lead Gallery Assistants Farrah Alkhadra Breah Fyffe Gallery Assistants Angela Arroyo Sara Baker Ash Cohen Justin Davis Copy Editor Joanna Hoch Photos Copyrighted and Courtesy of the individual artists unless otherwise stated

fgcu.edu/artgalleries FGCU Art Galleries 10501 FGCU Boulevard South Fort Myers, FL 33965-6565 (239) 590-7199 | artgalleries@fgcu.edu

Art Gallery Hours M-F 10am to 4pm