By Dominic Rapposelli
Business and Distribution Manager
From Aug. 29 to Oct. 5, Washington College hosted an exhibit from artist Sizhu Li titled “Moonment.” The piece resided in the Kohl Gallery in the Daniel Z. Gibson Center for the Arts. The culmination of the exhibition was an artist talk in Tawes Theatre and reception in the Kohl Gallery on Oct. 5. Both events were open to the public as well as the WC community.
WC was a stop on Li’s Moonment tour, where her piece was being displayed across the country. Li developed this piece over the pandemic and hopes the piece is able to bring people together.
“People who feel disconnected or isolated…can just look at my work,” Li said.
Each Moonment exhibition features a different augmentation or change to the display. The piece utilizes fans which blow aluminum sheets back and forth. These could be seen going up walls and suspended in midair.
“Now the sheets can fly in the air, which is what you see in the gallery,” Li said.
Li added that at WC she was able to build her own space in the Kohl Gallery whereas in other places she constructed her piece around the space. She added that this also allowed her to try even more new things with her current installation.
“I’m developing and not just repeating myself. It’s a little different, but every time I’m doing something differently,” Li said.
Director and curator of the Kohl Gallery Tara Gladden hopes that students can use this talk as a learning experience.
“I think they get to learn about the creative process and how artists actually create, come up with ideas, and explore materials. And then how artists are able to take their thoughts and material explorations and form them into some kind of creative, expressive form,” Gladden said.
Students attended the talk either for class or out of their desire to learn from an experienced artist.
Senior Francesca Jacobs is a studio art major who received a one-on-one discussion with Li before the artist talk.
“I had an art talk with her yesterday, like a one on one senior art talk because I’m the only studio art major this year,” Jacobs said. “I just wanted to learn more about the artist, she taught me a lot about her processes and everything like that. To hear how she develops things to be very specific is very cool.”
Li enjoyed the reception from the campus and larger community. Not only are others enthused about her piece, she is happy with the installation.
“I tell Tara, this is my best piece,” Li said.
The Kohl Gallery will hold events in the future as well with upcoming art exhibitions planned as soon as the end of October.
“It’s called color, surface, face, and the abstract imagination. That’s going to be a big one, we’re going to have a performance artist at the opening. It’s going to feature four new artworks that have been donated to Washington College by a famous artist named Willem de Kooning…” Gladden said. “It’s going to look at abstraction from various points of view.”
Photo by Dominic Rapposelli
Photo Caption: Pictured above is artist Sizhu Li’s art piece entitled “Moonment,” previously available to be viewed in the Kohl Gallery.