UNC Wilmington features five art exhibits in one night
Dozens of artists from the Wilmington area had their work on display Thursday night as UNC Wilmington hosted the second UNCW Campus Art Walk.
The Art Walk spanned five main locations on campus and was inspired by Wilmington’s “Fourth Friday” Gallery Walks. The idea, says Catarina Mendez, Arts Chair for the Association for Campus Entertainment, is to give participants a broader sense of the art on UNCW’s campus by leading a tour through each gallery or exhibit within the university.
“The Art Walk is a way for others on and off campus to see the culturally diverse art exhibits our school offers,” Mendez said.
The locations included in the Art Walk were the CAB Gallery and UNCW Sculpture Yard at the Cultural Arts Building, Randall Library, the Boseman Art Gallery and the Upperman African American Cultural Center.
Beginning the self-guided tour at the Cultural Arts Building, visitors were invited to explore the first exhibit of the night titled, “Synergy: Paintings and Drawings by Sergej Andreevski and Gligor Cermerski.”
The goal of this exhibit was to promote the No Boundaries International Art Colony, an organization founded by a group of artists in the late 1990s that aims to highlight art from all nations. This specific exhibit focused on the Colony’s continued support for key artists of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
The UNCW Sculpture Yard was also included in the CAB portion of the tour. This exhibit features the work of UNCW sculpture students and rotates regularly throughout the year.
The tour then moved to Randall Library where the Sherman Hayes Gallery featured an exhibit titled “Beyond the Fold”.
“[This exhibit] features a variety of pamphlets from UNCW’s University Archives and Special Collections,” Mendez said.
The exhibit was curated by two of UNCW’s public history graduate students and will remain on display in Randall for students to browse.
The final stops on the tour were both in the Fisher University Union. The first was titled, “My Lord, What a Morning” and was located at the Upperman Cultural Center. It focused on capturing local nature along the waterways of New Hanover County through the medium of photography.
“In the Upperman Cultural Center,” Mendez said, “we have photographs showing coastlines and sunsets taken by Venita Jenkins, who is our communications and content specialist at UNCW.”
Boseman Art Gallery was the final stop on the tour and displayed three-dimensional sculptures by UNCW’s own art students in an exhibit called, “Sculptural Evolution: Giving Form to Concept”.
Mendez, who runs events and exhibits throughout the year in the Boseman Gallery, says that events like Art Walk are a great way to showcase how the Wilmington community appreciates art and how each gallery on campus works hard to contribute to the university.
“I myself have so many plans for the Boseman Gallery,” she said, “that I feel like I could safely surmise that those over the other galleries on campus must have plans for events coming our way as well.”
The Art Walk is also a great way to create a sense of community and diversity through the arts, says Mendez.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re a direct member of the art community or not,” she said. “If you love art, then we are here for you. Having different exhibits across campus is a perfect representation of how culturally diverse we are as a community. It doesn’t matter your background; everyone can look at a piece of art and interpret it in their very own unique way.”
As for events coming up in the future, Mendez was careful not to give too many of her plans away, but she did encourage students and the community to stay tuned.
“We are all about giving others the room and opportunity to showcase their work,” she said. “I don’t want to say what specific activities we’ll be rolling out just yet, but UNCW students should definitely be on the lookout as we move forward this school year.”