Artists express themselves through their pieces of work that allow them to put their feelings and ideas into each one, and such was the case on Thursday, January 26, as Eastern Kentucky University’s Giles Gallery welcomed two art collections from Kentucky Artists and Educators, Jack Girard and Doreen Maloney.
Maloney’s collection, ‘Elevated fears and suspended dreams’ was located on the lower level of the gallery while Girard’s ‘Figuration’ exhibition was found on the upper level of the gallery.
The gallery serves as home to showcase artists from students, faculty and the surrounding community to allow the public to see their collections.
Maloney has been an artist in Kentucky for 24 years and was inspired to do so through her time in the Peace Corps where she traveled overseas and experienced different cultures and ways of living.
“I experienced a lot of things there and I couldn’t really express it with words. So I first used dance and then video and just different media,” said Maloney.
Girard works differentiate with that of Maloney’s as he works primarily in collage.
“I work primarily in collage, as the form suits the fragmented design of my days and offered me options for long-term image development and/or brief, spontaneous, and expressive applications,” as stated by Girard from the Studio Montclair website.
Maloney also said that she feels all sorts of emotions when putting pieces together. “Usually, I feel a great sense of peace … It’s almost like you go into a flow state and it’s sort of meditative and it’s kind of joyful and peaceful and doesn’t really matter what the content is.,” she said. “It’s sort of your own state of mind, it’s a very nice place actually.”
Maloney said her work is inspired by the most mundane tasks or sometimes it just comes to mind. Her piece entitled “Personal Weather”, was first created out of plexiglass and then she switched to different forms of paper.
“They [the pieces] usually come from life in general. Like the Clouds actually first came to me when I started making all of these Christmas cookies and I was using cookie cutters. For me, art is related to everything in your life,” said Maloney.
Maloney said that while in the process of making cookies, she was thinking about clouds and if she could possibly find a way to create them in an extraordinary way.
When artists come to bring their work to the gallery, it helps students who are majoring in a multitude of artistic majors gain inspiration as well.
“I come to every Giles gallery showing, especially when they have gallery talks. I go to get inspiration from pieces and learn something every time I go. It’s a good time to go look at artwork with your classmates because everyone sees the art a different way and it intrigues me a lot,” said junior art major McKenzie McGeorge. “Art teaches me self-awareness and emotions and I choose to express those things in my art because I have a hard time with them.”
McGeorge hopes to work with a tight knit community and create digital and physical pieces that bring joy and happiness to a specific city or town through her own art.
Maloney said that she has been working on some of these pieces as far back as 2017 and she is currently working on a “floating house piece”.
“It’s a floating house piece and it’s different than the ones that are there, but I got a visit from a curator from Louisville and she said something to me, she goes ‘I really think you should try and build one of these really large and my colleague’, Ruth Adams and I, she’s the Director of the School of Art at the University of Kentucky, came together and we’re collaborating on a piece that is a floating house like a meditation shelter, but it will hang off the ground,” said Maloney.
The Giles Art Gallery holds public showings throughout each semester. Some may be open to the public for only a day or a week, or just depend on the artist and the Director of the Giles Art Gallery.
