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A partnership between Mark and Carolyn Blackburn and the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, GalleryHNL announces their inaugural exhibition showcasing recent works by four talented Honolulu artists from the UH Mānoa art department—Mary Babcock, Theresa Heinrich, Jonathan Swans and Tom Walker.
The gallery will hold an opening reception on Saturday, May 2 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Gentry Pacific Design Center.
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About the artists
Mary Babcock
Babcock is an associate professor for UH Mānoa’s Department of Art and Art History. Mending is a central theme in Babcock’s work, both as an actual reparative action and as a metaphor for personal and social change. Her Salvaged Net Series, Hydrophilia, a key example of this approach, is a collection of large scale tapestries created from discarded fishing nets, ropes and line collected from rivers and seas across the Pacific and Pacific Rim.
Theresa Heinrich
Heinrich is an undergraduate student completing her BFA this spring at UH Mānoa. Her work focuses on ceramic sculptures using the self-proclaimed approach of maximalism, where more is more, is more. Heinrich layers and combines a myriad of elements drawn equally from popular culture, kitsch, religious and mythological iconography.
Jonathan Swans
Swanz received his MFA from UH Mānoa in 2013 and is currently a lecturer in glass and ceramics. He is a glass artist who is equally at home in the practice of decorative and contemporary art. His recent series, Tropical Abstract, is a collection inspired by Hawaiʻi’s ocean, flora and fauna, crafted using traditional Italian, Swedish and Dutch glass techniques.
Tom Walker
Walker is currently completing his MFA at UH Mānoa. Having grown up in Europe, his exposure to German metaphysics has been a driving force behind his work and he continues to find avenues between philosophy and art-making. Sequence is Walker’s most recent series of acrylic paintings utilizing chromostereopsis, a phenomenon in optics that can only occur on a flat surface and gives the illusion of depth through unique chromatic relationships.
For more information, visit the GalleryHNL website.