Kreydatus and McLemore: Faculty artists at the Muscarelle
Brian Kreydatus The crown has become a signature of the artist's self-portraits.
Visitors to the Muscarelle Museum at the College of William & Mary have been treated during the past month to the 11th faculty art show featuring works of 13 current and former professors in the department of art and art history.
Among the exhibitors are associate professor Brian Kreydatus and instructor Brad McLemore. The two faculty members recenlty shared their thoughts about their works during videotaped interviews conducted on behalf of the William & Mary News.
"I am a recorder of the human figure, or more accurately the human condition," Kreydatus said. "I am obsessed with the skin's meaty physicality, its vulnerability and how poignantly beautiful imperfections challenge and refute accepted canons of beauty."
Kreydatus, primarily a printmaker, chose to exhibit five oil paintings, including one self-portrait that features him wearing a golden crown. He paints a self-portrait on each of his birthdays, he explained. The crown, he said, is included every 10th year.
Kreydatus also exhibited two narrative paintings, "10:30 a.m." and "Opening Day Night." Each represents an attempt to explain aspects of hunting to people who were not born into an outdoorsman culture, a challenging proposition. He succeeds in that venture by featuring decoys - a goose and a deer, respectively - that appear, seams and all, along with human figures waiting and anticipating either the hunt or the return of the hunters.
McLemore, who began his career as a potter, exhibited works that juxtapose dense, dark stone with light porcelain. The pieces, each representing concepts of mass and movement, are unified in their sense of buoyancy, an effect achieved through the way they make contact with the ground.
Describing the collection, McLemore said he wants each to be both formal and personal. "They become almost a mineralogist's curiosity for me."
In all, the exhibition features more than 75 works by William & Mary faculty members. The faculty art show, which has been presented every two-to-five years at the Muscarelle, helps fulfill the mission of the museum, according to Aaron De Groft, director.
"As a university museum, two of our goals are to utilize the museum as a laboratory for learning and to collaborate with the faculty of the College," De Groft said. "This exhibition provides us the opportunity to do both."
The faculty exhibition is scheduled to run through Oct. 25.
