New Artwork Adds Buzz to Art Library
The first column, "Floating in the Night," is the work of recent M.F.A. graduate Brad Reagan. It stands behind the front desk as a mixture of painting and sculptural elements reminiscent of a Dr. Seuss illustration. Below the dark sky painted on the column is insulation evoking green brain membrane, with stems stretching forward and blossoming retro flowers.
"Though there is a light side to my work with the use of bright colors and comical googly-eyes, there is also a subverted dark side," said Reagan. "Innuendos and the consistent use of black allude to nighttime's psychological and biological desires."
Josh Hockensmith, Art Library assistant, proposed the idea and hopes to make it an annual Library-sponsored contest, where members from the Library's Public Art Committee and the Department of Art will choose the artist from student proposals.
"Workers came in to just paint the columns off-white," said Hockensmith. "It was kind of boring and I thought they should be more creative because it's the Art Library."
The next contest date has not been determined, he said, but students are already interested in decorating the remaining seven columns downstairs.
Additional aesthetic appeal will be generated when paintings by late art historian and painter Lynn Igoe are cleaned and hung in the library, said Hockensmith.
