Informants

Ruth Trotter
Dion Johnson
Keith Lord
Gary Colby

Artists who teach art often find themselves in a self-reflective frame of mind as they go about painting, photographing or assembling their own work. Spending a great deal of time otherwise instructing students on how to make art, these professors face their own instruction as their paint hits the canvas or their shutter snaps. This type of reflection may occasionally become frustrating for the art professor because it can leave them second-guessing their every action. But for us viewers, such careful self-questioning results in a beautiful and informative treat. The University of La Verne's art faculty are in fact informants, instructing us not only through their in-studio teaching but here as well, in their art work. From the paintings, photographs and assemblages presented in this show, we learn how a representation is composed and how a work of art is created even as we perceive the beautiful final product. The dedication to teaching these artist make professionally virtually guarantees this information. Sometimes their lesson presents itself tongue-in-cheek, as with Gary Colby's photography. In other cases, it finds a gentle balance between the how and what of representation, as in Ruth Trotter's and Dion Johnson's work. Lord teaches us that representation may not be at all related to the space it re-presents while Barry Markowitz emphasizes that materials and pictorial depiction may be pulled miles apart and still remain dependent on each other. In yet another case, Rebecca Hamm stresses a surprising tension between the decorative and the photographic. Despite the different strategies taken by these professor informants, however, their art manages to inform and please simultaneously, even if it does so by actually defeating our expectations.

Dr. Andres Mario Zervigon
Assistant Professor of Art History