‘Alluvial Plain’ Hits Madelon Powers Gallery

Photo Courtesy / Madelon Powers Facebook Page According to ESU, Love describes “Alluvial Plain” as internal and transient exploration of place. “My process is an immediate response to juxtaposed materials, whether combining modeling paste and resin or porcelain and glass,” she said. Photo Courtesy / Madelon Powers Facebook Page
According to ESU, Love describes “Alluvial Plain” as internal and transient exploration of place. “My process is an immediate response to juxtaposed materials, whether combining modeling paste and resin or porcelain and glass,” she said.

By Amber Tortorelli
Staff Writer

“Calm” is the word Colleen Brida, a student worker at the Madelon Powers Art Gallery uses to describe “Alluvial Plain”, the exhibit by Yvonne Love currently being shown.

Joni Oye-Benintende, director of the Madelon Powers Art Gallery, became interested in Love’s work when she showed at the gallery last year as part of a group exhibition called “Methodologies” which focused on artists who incorporate science and environmental issues in their art.

“[Love’s] work was intriguing because visually it is very attractive- cool, almost mesmerizing and she uses clay and a clay like putty to create her varied surfaces.” said Oye-Benintende.

“I was also interested in what messages she was trying to deliver.”

When asked what she thought the role of the artist is in modern society, Love replied: “There are artists who very specifically make work to affect change. I do a little bit of both. Art, whether personal work or specifically social or political work, connects and synthesizes thoughts and emotions quite simply in ways that nothing else can.”

The work of the Bucks County native has a strong connection to the natural world.

The mixed media pieces she creates invoke the cracked surface of frozen lakes and bodies of skeletal deep sea coral.

She defines her work as “exploring quiet memories and employing a play on repetition that offers both a meditative state as well as eliciting a tone that is simultaneously of the body and the ocean.”

Fine Art major Chris Robinson notes that he appreciates that the curators of Madelon Powers incorporate types of art that may not be expected in a traditional fine arts gallery.

It’s a “nice step up from just paintings,” he says.

The Madelon Powers Gallery, it is located within the Fine & Performing Arts Center on Normal Street and is free to the public.

The exhibits change monthly. On Nov. 1, the gallery will hold a new exhibit featuring the work of Italian contemporary artist Giovanni Lombardini.

The Madelon Powers Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Friday, and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday.

Love’s exhibit will run until Oct. 27.

Email Amanda at:
atortorell@live.esu.edu