There is nothing more infinite than an empty canvas: it embodies possibility.
Starting last week, the Undergraduate Art League (UAL) of Ohio University conquered the task of dousing a giant canvas with a fresh coat of paint, applying a new mural to the wall of Baker University Center’s third floor theater lounge.
The effort was executed by members of UAL and headed by senior Carrie Smith and sophomore Stephen Deffet, both students in the OU painting program.
In Baker Center, art has become a regular fixture, affixing the walls of each floor and composing an eclectic gallery for people riding the escalators.
These exhibitions are the Baker Artwork Project, which provides community and student artists with blank canvases to be showcased in the building once completed.
“We want to reduce the sterility of the structure,” said Evan Wilkof, a first year graduate student in the higher education program and assistant for operations in Baker’s event services department. “That is what our partnership with the Art League is essentially about — making the interior of the structure personable and aesthetically interesting.”
This new approach artistically integrates the past and present with precise originality, literally mapping the transformation of the city.
Conceptually conceived by Smith, the new work uses various maps from the Athens County Historical Society on Court Street. Starting with the oldest recorded map of the county, it chronicles Athens with different colors assigned to different eras, the maps layered in a delineated style.
“I want to show the rich history of the town,” Smith said. “I really like the whole nostalgic quality of the piece, the changes in landscape and layout through time.”
A main feature is the Hocking River, beaming through the sketched progression as if shadowing its own vibrant thread, flowing over plotted points jotted in paint.
“The Art League is really a collective,” said Deffet, vice president of the Art League. “We have marginal ties to the University, but we try to emphasize the role of the artist in the community through public works.”
Smith recently added the newest layer of the river; a blue hue, with old and new dueling for space next to the maze of aged streets, a treasure map of the city’s fortune past and present.
“Everybody loves the town in its present state, especially the party scene, but that can sometimes be a surface level appreciation,” Smith said. “I want to provoke people to see the town from its origins, to show the environment as it has grown.”
The building’s administration hopes to prolong their collaboration with the league and continue to change the mural each year, to give new artists a chance to be seen, Wilkof said.
sn002310@ohiou.edu
This article appeared in print with the headline "The Galleria de Baker"
