August 19-September 16: Bits and Pieces-New works by Adrian Rhodes at FMU's Hyman Fine Arts Center

August 19 - September 16, 2014 8:30 am - 5:00 pm Mon-Fri Hyman Fine Arts Center Gallery Bits and Pieces - New Works by Adrian Rhodes. Adrian Rhodes is a native of Hartsville, S.C. She earned her B.F.A. from Winthrop University, and during her undergraduate studies she spent a semester studying fine art in Imatra, Finland. She completed her M.F.A. in painting and printmaking from Winthrop University and is currently teaching at Wingate University. "I am interested in studio practice as a way to question--I am interested in the act of making. I don't try to illustrate an idea, rather I let process guide the piece and find its meaning in the method used to create it. Printmaking is an important part of my process. I create editions, and pull additional prints from the matrix that I deconstruct and use as college material in my mixed media pieces. This leads to recurring imagery across my work that becomes part of my personal iconography, and the meaning I find in these different images helps me to determine the meaning of the larger works. “I like paper, texture, and color. I take cast off things and collage them into my work: onion bags, bits of string, and the mylar press bed covers marked by ink and registration marks. I pick up feathers, dead moths, bees, and scraps of books. Nothing is sacred, and nothing is trash. A "finished" piece might be deconstructed into components for many other paintings, or I might sweep up the studio floor and make a collage of whatever I find. Including these random bits of life in the work blurs the line between studio and sidewalk. “My finished work reflects the enjoyment in manipulating materials: drawn mark making, paint manipulations, printmaking processes, collage and transfer techniques. I find the tension between rigid structural forms and organic, intuitive mark making reflects internal conflict. This tension explores a desire to control life, counterpoised against the futility of that effort. It is recognizing the correlations between my studio and the world outside that allows me to create work which reflects the meaning inherent in the search."