Ron Cubbison
Photo courtesy of www.bmoreart.com.
A new art exhibition on campus will feature the work of former art students and honor the legacy of their beloved professor.
Presented by the Department of Art + Design, Art History and Art Education, “Ron Cubbison Returning Award Winners Alumni” will be on display June 13—28 in the Center for the Arts Holtzman Gallery. An opening reception will be held Thurs., June 12, 7:30—9 p.m.
Ron Cubbison taught painting and drawing at Towson University for 30 years. A firm believer in the individual vision of students and the power and impact of travel as an inspiration for creativity, he created a one-time fellowship award before his passing in 2008 to provide his former students with the opportunity to travel.
The winners were selected last year through a juried exhibition of work by his former students. The two jurors, artists Mary Ann Krutsick and Fran Bull, chose former graduate students Diana Marta and Valerie Anderson and former undergraduates Jane Hill, Tina Lake and Susan Stockman.
Marta traveled to California, where she was fascinated by the mythology of Hollywood and attracted to the creative energy and bright colors of the neon lights and murals of Los Angeles. The subjects and colors of her work prove that undeniably.
“What Do You Wish?” by Marta, quilt on hula hoop with found objects.
Stockman used her award to travel to Spain, where she created a mosaic work inspired by the architecture of Barcelona’s Antonio Gaudi. This work is the result of her “mind being expanded and her ego being diminished,” she says, adding that she is eternally grateful to Ron Cubbison for this gift.
Lake traveled to Paris and saw the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre Museum and the Centre George Pompidou. The challenges of navigating the city reminded her that artists must get lost at some point in the process of creative discovery. The result of her travels is a large triptych of hard-edged, brightly colored paintings of these three historic structures.
The award afforded Anderson the opportunity to spend time in Paris, Florence, Venice and Tuscany, where her fascination with reflections in glass, water, metal and mirrors, a recurring theme in her work, mushroomed. “Each place has its own distinctive treasures, and each experience is reflected in aspects of my work in this show,” she says.
Hill traveled to Austin, Texas, to both experience the desert landscape and to sing with a group of musicians who use the music of Hildegarde of Bingham—a 12th-century German nun, mystic, artist and composer—as meditation. The sculptures and drawings she created were taken from figure studies of her fellow singers, drawn as they sang or prepared to sing. She gradually combined their organic forms with imagery of trees, water, small boats and birds.
The gallery is open Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. The exhibition and opening reception are free and open to the public.
