The Ford Gallery is currently having a public show, which features a combination of local and national talent.
The collection of more than 30 paintings includes Eastern Michigan University faculty and pieces submitted from people all over the nation, chosen by show curators Amy Sacksteder and Michael Reedy.
During an interview with Sacksteder, she explained her choices concerning the paintings in the show and the inspirations behind her own work featured in the show.
“We posted requests for paintings on the college art association and there were over 100 submissions from all over the nation,” Sacksteder said. “We also had submissions from faculty and fellow artists we knew. We tried to choose work that worked together within this space.”
Sacksteder has a piece in the gallery entitled “In All Sincerity,” a colorful painting featuring swallows with a background of money plants.
“I painted birds because I am working on a series with natural objects and a pop culture feel,” she explained. “I knew the elements in the picture before I painted it.”
Adrian Deva, the artist behind the painting entitled “Corrupt JPG,” gave his take on the gallery, and the inspiration behind his painting.
“I painted the Corrupt JPG because I was going through my e-mails one day and I found a JPG and decided to enlarge the picture and paint it.” He said. “It is not an exact copy but very similar.”
“Many inspirations came through artists finding things like old shoes and taking them back to the studio and copying them,” Deva said. “To me, this is a new find. Twenty years ago, artists could not find something like a corrupt JPG file because they did not have computers.
“Now with our new technologies there are many interesting and new finds in the world that were never imagined before and the whole gallery is a very diverse display that shoots for the extremes in both media and style, and I like that!”
