“DIVERSE FORMS, DIVERSE MEANINGS” ART EXHBITION
SHOWCASES SCHOOLCRAFT’S HIDDEN TALENT

(Plymouth Township, Mich.) Three talented artists from among the Schoolcraft College art faculty will be displaying their incredible range of skills and media at a new professional gallery space a few miles from campus. This exhibition, called “Diverse Forms, Diverse Meanings,” officially opens Sat., Oct. 2, 2010, at Art & Ideas Contemporary Art Gallery & Studio (a.k.a. “Art & Ideas Gallery”).

The show features the work of lead Schoolcraft art faculty Sarah Olson and instructors Ellen Moucoulis and Robert Bielat. Their work will be on display from Sept. 25 through Nov. 13 at Art & Ideas in Plymouth Township, north of Plymouth.

“While the differences in style and media are clearly evident, what unites the three of us as artists is our fluency in our respective media,” says Olson. “We each have a fundamental need to express aspects of ourselves which would not be visible were it not for our art.”

Sculptor Robert Bielat is a self-described “postmodern constructivist” who creates raw, dramatic metal sculptures that reflect our aging post-industrial landscape. “My work has evolved through the years, but has always interpreted the tension between man, nature, and technology,” he says, “acknowledging our human imprints on the past, and reminding us that we are creators of the future we wish to share with this planet.”

Painter Ellen Moucoulis has shown her work throughout Michigan and other Great Lakes states. In her “Homage” series, she highlights the raw, physical drama of animals’ bodies. She says the series of paintings demonstrates the synchronicity of thought of artists from different times in history, and from different cultures. “It’s an example of how we are all connected. I chose to revisit and reinterpret themes and images that captured my imagination, using animals to magnify and exaggerate emotion,” including humor, she adds.

Mixed-media artist Sarah Olson will show layered, semi-abstract mixed-media paintings that often use ancient runes or Chinese characters as contextual references. “Although my work spans the general categories of representational, non-objective, and abstract, my hope is that the viewer will sense a persuasive philosophical and spiritual strand, winding through and unifying my collective body of work,” she says. “By using the physical media of paint, canvas, and clay, I explore the often ambiguous roles of negative and positive space in the interdependent and ever-changing physical, mental, and spiritual planes."

An opening reception for “Diverse Forms, Diverse Meanings” will be held on Saturday, Oct. 2, from 5:30 to 9pm, with short talks by the artists starting at 6:00, and music to follow. The reception is free and open to the public (all ages). The work will be on display Sept. 25 – Nov. 13; regular gallery hours are on Saturdays, 1-7pm, or by appointment.

This is the seventh themed exhibition held at Art & Ideas since it opened in Dec. 2009. The final exhibition of 2010 (opening Nov. 20) will be a retrospective of the gallery’s first year of existence. Artists from all seven exhibitions will be represented with artworks that will each represent the theme of “Time” in some way.

Apart from the themed exhibitions, the artwork of the gallery/studio’s artist-in-residence, Shaqe Kalaj, is on continuous display in its rear studio space. Art & Ideas also offers a variety of art classes, as well as workshops for enhancing creativity. These include its ongoing “Fearless Creating” workshop, based on the book by coaching expert Eric Maisel. Art & Ideas LLC’s director is Mike Tolinski.
 
Art & Ideas is located at 15095 Northville Rd. (in the Provincetown commercial complex), one mile north of Plymouth’s “Old Village” and two miles south of Northville. (It’s across from Phoenix Lake, 200 yards north of the eastbound Five Mile Rd. intersection, right at the intersection where northbound Edward Hines Drive intersects Northville Rd.) For detailed directions and maps, see www.artandideasgallery.com or call 734-420-0775. To receive weekly e-alerts about exhibitions, activities. and classes, email imshacha@me.com.

Schoolcraft College is a public two-year college that offers a wide range of credit (degree-based) and non-credit (personal development) art classes at the main campus in Livonia, Haggerty Road between Six and Seven Mile Roads; at the Radcliff Center in Garden City; and online. Classes range from ceramics, photography, drawing, painting, sculpture, art history and art appreciation. For more information visit www.schoolcraft.edu or call 734-462-4426.