Picture taken by: Yoolee Alex Jun / Special to The Leader
CARLY KNASZAK
Special to The Leader
Fredonia welcomes back Jan Nagle this week with her “Place and Space” exhibit, located in the Marion Art Gallery. Nagle had her work first displayed at Fredonia during 2011 in the MARK 11/12 exhibition — a group show featuring artists who participated in the New York Foundation for the Arts MARK professional artist-training program.
“Place and Space” features a series of photographs, a program of six videos, a large drawing, an artist book, a four-channel video installation and a slide projection.
“Most of the work that I’m showing has been made in the past five years, so it’s sort of a retrospective of recent works,” Nagle said. “Many of the pieces have been shown once or twice before, in Buffalo and beyond, but there are several works that are being shown for the first time: ‘Life Map [Waterways],’ which is the large drawing, and three of the videos: ‘Ifatree Falls,’ ‘California’ and ‘Guess The Water.’”
Kate Gratson is a sophomore at Fredonia who took a more meaningful perspective from Nagle’s artwork — particularly one photograph series that features close up photos of cracks in streets.
“I noticed the cracks in the pictures are shaped as hearts; to me it might mean that people can find beauty in anything,” Gratson said.
Nagle said one of her influences for “Place and Space” is photographer Alec Soth, an artist whose work is described as “offbeat, hauntingly banal images of modern America” by art critic Hannah Booth of “The Guardian.”
“I’ve been thinking about Alec Soth’s work quite a bit in the past few years, and I think you can see that most directly in ‘Home & Garden,’ which is the series of larger photographs, in that it’s a combination of portraits and landscapes,” Nagle said.
An early color photographic process called autochrome also fascinates Nagle, something she says she enjoys for the “graininess and beautiful, punchy color.”
“I’m much more influenced, though, by my circumstances and surroundings than anything else,” Nagle said. “I have spent much of the past couple of years on the road, traveling quite a bit, and living in several places, so the influence of travel is fairly obvious in my work. Most of the places I’ve lived in and visited were near large bodies of water, such as Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, Lake Michigan and the Niagara River. Having grown up on the Hudson River, waterways have always had a significant impact on my psyche, and therefore on my art work in general.”
For having as many pieces of art in the “Place and Space” exhibit as Nagle does, someone may think an artist would have a favorite piece, but Nagle described that it would be like choosing her favorite child.
“If I had to name one though, it would be ‘Guess The Water.’ After [being showcased in] Fredonia, it will become a permanent part of the Front Lawn installation at the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo,” Nagle said.
Aside from her show at Fredonia, Nagle has had two solo shows at the CEPA Gallery in Buffalo. She is also part of many public and private collections, including “Light Work” in Syracuse, N.Y., and is included in a permanent collection at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center. Nagle describes herself as “an accidental transplant, but proud and grateful to be part of the Western New York community.”
“My artwork is about place, and how it informs identity. I hope that people will walk away thinking about how they are personally influenced by the landscape that surrounds them.”
Nagle will be attending the closing reception of the “Place and Space” exhibit on Oct. 3, 2014.