Student Art Space features Qatari student artists in preparation for Qatar Day

Nick Bonadies Spectrum Editor

In preparation for VCU Qatar Day this Tuesday, the walls of the Student Art Space at the VCU Student Commons are being stocked with artwork by students at VCU Qatar’s own art department.

Each of the VCU Qatar art program’s four branches – fashion design, interior design, graphic design and the newly instated painting and printmaking – will be represented, each featured on their own wall.

Two of the 15 students visiting the Richmond campus from Qatar will visit the exhibit on Tuesday and give a brief presentation as part of their Qatar Day itinerary.

Senior sculpture major and Student Art Space co-curator Egbert Vongmalaithong visited VCU Qatar as part of a visiting-artist program last semester, engaging in what he called a “week-long conversation” with the art students there. Vongmalaithong also used his experience as one of the Student Art Space curators to help

Qatari students start their own studentrun gallery. Together, they developed an interactive exhibit similar to the Student Art Space’s premiere exhibit last fall, where gallery visitors were encouraged to draw and post their own artwork on the walls.

“We wanted to give them an idea of the potential that a gallery can have,” Vongmalaithong said. “It doesn't have to just be sculptures and paintings; it can be any kind of project.”

In a manner of exchange, for their Qatar Day exhibit, the Student Art Space curators have worked to recreate VCU Qatar’s famously pristine, streamlined design in their own –considerably smaller – space.

“Their amenities ... are so far above what we have,” said Cameron Robinson, senior sculpture major and fellow Student Art Space co-curator. “So we’ve been struggling to make this (Student Art Space) as beautiful as possible.”

“We cleaned the windows ... vigorously,” she added.

Other renovations have included sanding and repainting the walls and installing new projectors and wall- to be displayed at Art6 Gallery this past Friday, along with other artists who chose to take on the task.

Other events throughout the week will commemorate the public display of the etching. On Tuesday Professor Edwards will speak at Cabell Library at 3 p.m., and also on Wednesday in the Richmond Salons at 7 p.m. He intends to discuss his upcoming book on the “ghost paintings” and his findings through research on the topic of Van Gogh.

Edwards has been teaching at VCU since 1975, and although he is a religious studies professor, that interest is exactly what began his journey as a Van Gogh expert.

About 40 years ago he went to Japan to do work with art in Zen Buddhism; and he visited a Zen master in Kyoto at a monastery.

“I was asking him if I could see a famous piece of art (at the monastery), and he laughed and asked, ‘Why is it that you Westerners want to see this piece of art?’”

A Japanese gallery had just bought one of Van Gogh’s many iconic paintings of sunflowers, and so it puzzled the monk as to why Edwards was so interested in Eastern art, when there was so much western art to explore, Edwards said.

Edwards said the monk asked him to solve a “koan,” a type of puzzle, in order to see the artwork. But the monk’s comments, he said, inspired him to travel the world, collecting knowledge of Van Gogh and his works. He eventually wrote four books with the vast amount of information he discovered. Now, he says, that knowledge will give him the opportunity to educate others.

Van Gogh’s etching will be displayed at the Special Collections and Archives section on the fourth floor of Cabell Library. CT mounted flatscreen televisions.

Co-curator and sophomore communication arts major Philip Wisenhunt said that through this project, he is eager to witness an exchange of viewpoints from across cultures.

“One of the things with any art form is you get to see ... a curated view of other people’s lives and viewpoints. ... We'll see how people design fashion, for example, or how a fashion show is put together, in Qatar. And then when they’re here, they’ll get to see our own view,” he said. “That’s something that really excites me.”

“It’s sort of like having a sister town,” Robinson said, noting that the VCU Qatar campus was modeled after its counterpart in Richmond.

“It’s amazing to see and learn about a culture so radically different from ours,” she said. “But ... it might even be more amazing to see how similar some aspects are. That might be just as surprising.” CT