Gallery Announces Three New Exhibits

ONEONTA—The spring 2024 art gallery season at SUNY Oneonta is underway with three new exhibitions titled “Emotional Ties,” “Art Across Campus,” and “Cabinets, Tree Stands, and a Few Fish.”

“Cabinets, Tree Stands, and a Few Fish” is an exhibition of lithographs created over close to 30 years by Otego-based artist Timothy Sheesley (SUNY Oneonta ‘78). His pieces are on display in the Martin-Mullen Gallery until March 9.

“Sheesley’s work on view demonstrates his keen eye for detail and color, and each print is an intuitive meditation on personal memory, lived experience, and the things we keep,” said SUNY Oneonta Gallery Director Sarah Simpson. “The densely saturated colors encourage the viewer to look deeply, and the cloying imagery plucks at the edge of the mind, reminiscent of half noticed details and objects infused with meaning. Desiccated cats, wooden monkeys, locks, fish and more are placed above a simple but special cabinet. Each print is made in variations—the same design with different colors—as if the object or memory is being picked up, re-examined and filtered through time.”

“Emotional Ties” is a solo show of new work by digital and studio art senior Christine Schmitt selected from the gallery’s Project Open Call exhibition. Her work is on display in the Project Space Gallery from through February 24.

“This collaborative exhibition, which includes supporting photographic works by Molly Seidl (SUNY Oneonta ’23), features a wide range of Schmitt’s provocative crocheted art, such as her 2D abstract wall works, 3D sculptures, wearables and site-specific installations,” said Simpson. “Overall, this is an immersive experience where the viewer enters a cohesive and mostly abstract environment that asks you to consider texture, color, and shape in relation to the emotions they evoke. Schmitt offers guides in the form of emotive models dressed in the wearables that have since been combined into large-scale installations and in the presence and poses of her stuffed human-like sculptures. Enter this exhibition with an open mind and engage with the emotions that tie us all together.”

“Art Across Campus: Spring 2024” is the third exhibition in an annual series that showcases the creative final projects by students across campus from a diverse range of majors and focuses. This semester’s exhibit features student work submitted by Dr. Suriati Abas (elementary education and reading), Dr. Maria Chaves Daza (Africana and Latinx studies), Dr. Sheena Mason (English) and Dr. Sarah Portway (fashion).

“Art Across Campus” is on display in the Open Space Gallery until February 17.

Admission to the galleries is free and open to the public, and visitors can receive parking passes through the University Police Department. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. For more information, contact Simpson at Sarah.Simpson@oneonta.edu or (607) 436-2445.