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In January, there was an exhibit at Jones’ Eula Bass Gallery displaying ceramics works created by Jeff Brown and Benjie Hue.
The two artists met years ago in graduate school at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. Brown invited Hue to share an exhibit at Jones and both gave a gallery talk and demonstration of their processes.
Cesar A. Cruz once wrote in a 1997 poem: “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.”
This sentiment certainly applies to Hue — a professor of ceramics at Southeast Missouri State University — who displayed a variety of more unsettling doll-like works that encompass the darker aspects of humanity in contrast to the sculptures of Brown — an associate professor at Nicholls State University in Louisiana — who prefers organic works modeled after aspects of nature.
Though many find his work unsettling, Hue challenges the conventional definition of art by forcing viewers to reevaluate their perspectives and look for the facets of life embodied by his pieces.
His artist statement on his website mentions that he employs “simple but richly textured surfaces to transform easily relatable and yet often overlooked anxieties of everyday life — the frailty of our bodies, the specter of chemical dependency, religious uncertainty, family dynamics – into figures or obstacles to be faced by the viewer.”
Hue said his work stems from his love of storytelling. His gallery speech gave an insightful look into the darker aspects of humanity and the use of deviant imagery as metaphors to address numerous issues.
Hue said his work, “really comes out of love of storytelling. My comic books, graphic novels, stuff like superheroes and good versus evil, the hero’s journey. It ties into who is the hero in the everyday life, like us, like you in your journey, and you’re getting trials and tribulations.
“So, working with faces is a canvas storytelling, and it’s what is the story that varies from each one. I have a lot of pieces like that . . . toying with drug addiction, food addiction. I have a lot of friends that didn’t survive partying . . . And then, I have these little nepotism babies who look like they’re entitled to tell us what to do. Americana, blind nationalism, macroeconomics, really in the thickness.”
For example, Hue’s dolls featured devil-like features to symbolize inner struggles rather than what may initially be interpreted as demonic idols. These dolls included some form of imagery such as small attached sculpted pills to symbolize addiction or carved drawings like tattoos that tell stories.
A few of his other sculptures were striking in their stories, their pig-like faces and imagery symbolic of dangerous social issues like war and blind patriotism or the ugliness behind billionaires and nepotism.
In stark contrast to Hue’s nonconformist work, Brown’s sculptures contained abstract slopes and curves indicative of organic life. To be frank, I am not usually a fan of abstract work, but I found myself intrigued by Brown’s process. During his gallery talk, he shed light on his conceptual process.
“Some of my sources of inspiration are plants, and some of those plants could be various types of flowers to trees, a lot of things that I relate to when I go out… even just bent trees or the way trees might grow, or how a branch is coming off a tree,” Brown said. “Predominantly, my work is all about form… In terms of being organic, I can also see these as kind of being architectural in some ways. I also see these things almost like being in their own environment, not so much as the environment of a gallery, but an environment in which they would grow in, such as flowers and things like that.”
Brown’s use of color and firing process was notably interesting in how it uniquely affected the outcome of the pieces.
Wood-firing kilns are notorious for being unpredictable, as the ash sticks to the glaze — a paint-like color applied before that turns into the finished colorful product that one often sees in ceramics, for those unfamiliar with the term — and warps the color with peculiar patterns.
For many ceramicists, such a phenomenon is often lamented when attempting to achieve a perfect product, but Brown embraces this outcome and sees it as a part of the art. He described it as being akin to the imperfections that plants have in nature, a positive outlook that is truly remarkable to have.
Brown and Hue’s exhibit ran through January until Feb. 3. Exhibits typically run for approximately one month. Students and faculty are encouraged to check out the Eula Bass Gallery every month for any new art exhibits that the Art Department may display.
As of the time of writing, the current exhibit on display is the mixed-media work of Francis Lee and will be up until the middle of March.
by Juliet Tisdale
