STUDENT PICKS: Projection of Myth

Boat caught in a storm at sea, a man lifts a large anchor to throw over board, behind the boat a ghost appears from the hollow of a wave; rain; passage of text at top of print.

Kuwana, Station 43, from the series Fifty-three Pairs of the Tokaido

n.d.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi

Japanese

1798–1861

Purchased with the Winthrop Hillyer Fund.

Student Picks is a SCMA program in which Smith students organize their own one-day art show using our collection of works on paper. This month’s student curator and guest blogger Sophie Lei '20 discusses her show "Projection of Myth: Fantastic Creatures and Where to Find Them" which will be on view FRIDAY, December 2 from 12-4 PM in the Cunningham Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs. We hope to see you there!

Fantasy breeds our imagination, and imagination encircles the world. Since I was a child, I’ve dreamed about falling into a rabbit hole, hearing mermaids singing under moonlight, falling in love with vampires and attending Hogwarts. Illustrations of fairy tales were the keys to other worlds for me. That’s how the young me viewed art: a medium projecting the endless possibilities of the world.

Photo portrait of a dog enclosed in sheer fabric on an orange background.

_{William Wegman. American, born 1943. Adult Embryo, 1989. Polaroid Polacolor II print. Purchased with the gift of the National Endowment for the Arts and Joan Lebold Cohen, class of 1954, in honor of Jerome A. Cohen. SC 1990.8.}

As I’ve grown older, I’ve started to explore the many possible narratives and presentations of art. I’m always surprised at the different perspectives that artists choose to capture the story, like Joe McHugh’s White Rabbit, Keep Your Head and Barry Moser’s Alice, Her Sister and White Rabbit.

Pink, white, blue and purple; large checked floor receding into a doorway with scattered playing cards, mushroom in lower left, bottle in lower right with DRINK ME on label, chessman at mid left and another bottle with DRINK ME on its label, white rabbit in center sitting up with pink eye, the wall around the doorway is made up of camouflage squiggles in pink and blue with KEEP YOUR HEAD in purple appearing through the pattern.

_{Joe McHugh. American, born 1939. White Rabbit, Keep Your Head, 1967. Screenprint in color on paper. Purchased. SC 2011.38.82.}

Art that comes directly from imagination and enchants the viewer by merging fantasy and reality is fascinating as well, like Sandy Skoglund’s Revenge of the Goldfish. In summary, this exhibition includes works on myth and fantasy from different cultures over a time span of 200 years, all telling their own stories.

Three panels from Alice and Wonderland; left panel shows white rabbit wearing suit; middle panel shows Alice with hair in her face; third panel shows Alice's older sister holding a book sitting in a field of flower as Alice runs off in the distance.

_{Barry Moser. American, born 1940. Alice, Her Sister, and the White Rabbit, 1983. Monoprint two-color wood engraving on medium weight, slightly textured, white paper. Gift of Elizabeth O'Grady and Jeffrey P. Dwyer. SC 2014.54.90.}

Many thanks to Colleen McDermott and the Cunningham Center for making this show possible.

STUDENT PICKS: Projection of Myth

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