The Art of Wake Downtown

Title: Savoir c’est Pouvoir, 1989

Background: This original piece was created by Barbara Kruger, a conceptual post modernist artist. Translated as “Knowledge is Power” it serves as a strong reminder that Wake Downtown is foremost a center of learning. This piece was commissioned by the Department of Cultural Affairs in France to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution. This display on the 4th floor is a perfect example of the integral intersection between S.T.E.M and the humanities that Wake Downtown embodies!

Title: Jambalaya Festival

Background: Medium: Acrylic on Canvas. Created by Kendall Shaw, a Creole-Cajun artist born in New Orleans in 1924, this piece displayed in our 2nd floor atrium consists of 12 narrow, vertical canvases each painted in a single solid color. Shaw refers to these as “Cajun paintings” that are all about colors and how they interact with each other meant to “celebrate the energy of life and universal existence”! We make sure to celebrate life through the various academic and research endeavors that explore life and its inner workings everyday at Wake Downtown!

Title: Peace Through Chemistry I, 1970

Background: This five-color lithograph and silkscreen print embodies Roy Lichtenstein’s signature style through the use of primary colors, and benday dots used to create uniform color areas that are organized by definitive black outlines. The methodical and precise hand crafting print techniques used to create Peace Through Chemistry I are as delicate as the scientific experiments that go on everyday here at Wake Downtown, making this piece look machine made. The collage of gears, test tubes, plants, and microscopes creatively ties together aspects from all the programs housed in Wake Downtown!

Title: Worldwide, no date

Background: Worldwide by Howard Hersh is a mixed media on canvas piece that serves as a reminder of how Wake Downtown embodies the connection between the University and the greater Winston-Salem area. Hersh draws his creative inspiration from his philosophy on connectedness! He believes that all things are connected and inter-related, and he uses the beauty of his works to pull the viewer in and communicate his philosophy.

Title: Assembly in Orange, 1971

Medium: Acrylic on Canvas

Artist: Julian Stanczak

Location: 2nd floor atrium/study space

Title: Full Circle, 2017

Background: Title: Full Circle, 2017 Medium: Mixed Media Sculpture. Here is a quote from the Winston-Salem Artist, Dempsy Calhoun about this magnificent piece housed in our lobby! “A plethora of memories and experiences with tendrils in tobacco farming, manufacturing, campus life and artistic expression has been set before me – with the opportunity to share a story that somehow unites disparate elements featuring a past grafted into the bones of future growth. This massive factory renovation fuels a duality that my parents would find pleasing. For me there is a whiff of surreal and coming full circle.”

Title: Bouquet 1, 2016

Background: Bouquet 1 is a work from Professor Laughlin’s Fall 2015 Painting II/III course. The students were challenged to incorporate alternative materials into their paintings, and the resulting works utilize materials such as salt, ink, Miracle Grow, and fur or were created on copper, sand, wood, glass, and animal pelts.

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Artist: Connor Heindel ’16

Fire Doors

Sign painting artists Norma Jeanne Maloney, in cowboy hat, and Willow Anderson, from Red Rider Studios, work on one of the original doors in the old Reynolds tobacco factory in downtown Winston-Salem, which was saved to decorate the new Wake Downtown classroom building, on Wednesday, January 25, 2017.

These Fire Doors were here long before us, and serve as a great reminder of the historic significance of our building. Re-purposed as public art, these doors can be found on each floor throughout our building right outside our stairwells.

Although they would not hold up to today’s safety standards, they have found a new purpose as representatives of the intersection between STEM and the Arts.

Title: Ribbons, 1977

Medium: Fiber Art

Artist Joy Rushfelt had a prolific professional career as a commissioned fiber artist from the 1960s through the 1980s. She was the president of the Weavers Guild of greater Kansas City in 1968. Rushfelt created works for numerous corporate, professional, and governmental offices and buildings and for private residences and collections nationwide. Little is known about this artist who passed away in 2005. Should you have information you wish to share, please contact the Office of University Art collections.

Background: START.dt is a collaborative programming extension for the WFU student gallery and Wake Downtown. This initiative will periodically present work created by WFU students in available spaces at Wake Downtown, fostering cross-disciplinary interactions where creative and investigatory impulses overlap. Students interested in participating in START.dt should contact Maya Whitaker, START Gallery Manager, at startgal@wfu.edu.

Hypnopaedia

Hypnopædia is the process by which humans learn while sleeping. In this exhibition of drawings, intaglio prints, and sculpture for START.dt, Robert Link aestheticizes and problematizes the logic of scientific systems and moralizing mythologies alike.

Link is a senior at Wake Forest pursuing a B.S. in Physics with a double-major in Physics and Studio Art.

stArt@10

stArt gallery is celebrating 10 years of truly innovative student art programming with an exhibition curated by previous stArt managers – Caitlin Berry, Marcus Keely, Adelaide Knott, Katie Wolf , Becca Gleichenhaus, Brittany Forniotis, Kylie Kinder, and Jay Buchanan –  featuring works of student (now alum) artists from each respective manager’s tenure. In many cases recent work and projects will be paired with past ones.