Works by BRCC Art Faculty
February 25 - April 4
Opening reception: March 1, 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Paintings by John M. Bell
Warning Signs Indecision
Warning Signs Twilight
Sculptures by Jessica Martinkosky
Winter Solstice
Winter Solstice - bottom, close-up
Artist Statements
John M. Bell
The works on exhibit are from three series of paintings, “Warning Signs”, “Age/Old” and, “War Years”. In the “Warning Signs” paintings, I utilize common roadside sign imagery in layered and textural compositions that reference travel, the passing of time, and automobile-centered American culture. Many works in the series combine signs with fragments of landscape. In these works, signs become symbols relating to the social and political times that we live in. In the “Age/Old” series, I depict mostly mundane subjects that show the effects of aging, weathering, and misuse. I see them as a part of the vanitas tradition in art which seeks to remind the viewer of the fleeting quality of life. The “War Years” is my most recent series: these are paintings and mixed media works that explore the personal and social impacts of war on our lives.
John Bell lives in Augusta County, Virginia and is a Professor of Art at Blue Ridge Community College in Weyers Cave, Virginia. He has exhibited his paintings throughout Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, and California. He was awarded an International Artist-in-Residency at the Cill Rialaig Project in County Kerry, Ireland in 2005.
John Bell can be contacted at (540) 453-2225 or bellj@brcc.edu. His works can be viewed online at the BRCC web-site: http://academic.brcc.edu/gallery/faculty_bell.htm.
Jessica Martinkosky
Jessica Martinkosky is an Assistant Professor of Fine Art at Blue Ridge Community College and teaches ceramics, three-dimensional design and art history and appreciation. Previously, she was the Educator at the Peninsula Fine Arts Center in Newport News, Virginia. She received her MFA in Ceramics from Virginia Commonwealth University and her BFA from James Madison University and was a resident at the Cub Creek Foundation for the Ceramic Arts from September 2003 to August 2004. Jessica has taught at Virginia Wesleyan College in Norfolk, Virginia; Tidewater Community College in Portsmouth, Virginia; and Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. She has participated in exhibitions throughout the United States, from Virginia to Connecticut, Texas, and Idaho.
My work is made primarily of clay, with other media, such as fabric, metal, and wood, included when it feels logical. Surfaces include colored slips (watered-down clay), glaze (water, glass “flour,” and chemical colorants), paint, sand, and other materials. Some pieces are carved and hollowed from a solid piece of clay, while others are created from slabs of clay affixed together. I create protrusions, carve into the surface, stencil, and otherwise alter the surfaces to add additional information and/or meaning to the works. After glazing, the pieces are fired in an electric kiln to approximately 2300 degrees Fahrenheit and then non-clay materials are added on.
My past work has focused on negative aspects of organized religion, specifically their unwillingness to allow their commonalities to unite them. Easily-recognized symbols were used to identify the given religions. More recent pieces use the symbols as free-standing elements and focus on religion in a broader context. I have been exploring spirituality in general over this time period and the connections among the concepts of spiritual beliefs, emotional and spiritual wellbeing, positive psychology, and nature’s connections to spirituality. As a result, I’ve become more interested in organic and planetary rhythms and the cycles of life/time/the seasons. Due to this investigating, my work now has a broader focus.
While researching for my art history class lectures, I have relearned and expanded my knowledge of the similarities among world cultures’ spiritual belief systems. I have been particularly interested in the prevalence of reincarnation stories, spirals, a mother figure, and the numbers three and five, all of which show up throughout the course of human history on every habitable continent. I am also intrigued by the borrowing that has occurred among belief systems over the centuries.
In response to this information, some pieces twist and turn, blending as they move upward. Other pieces include spirals and coils in a more horizontal arrangement. Pillow forms function as elevating devices, emphasizing the item/s that they support. I also use them as symbols for the soft, almost nurturing, feel they provide to a piece. The numbers 3 and 5 are overt elements in some pieces and are used more subtly in others.
Hours & Contact
Fine Arts Center
Art Gallery
Room V121
Hours:
M-F, 9:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
(540) 453-2380
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