The Gallery - Works by Alumni Artists

BSC Alumni

BSC Faculty

Dr. Charles Norman Mason | Patti Manning

The Gallery
Works by Alumni Artists

Café Einstein, oil on linen, 24

Collin Asmus '90
Associate Professor of Art and Foundations Coordinator, Bridgewater State College, Bridgewater, Mass.

Café Einstein, oil on linen, 24” x 29”

“My paintings are derived from images taken off of public Web cameras around the world. Café Einstein depicts people sitting around a table at a café in Vienna, Austria. In most of my images, the individuals in the paintings have no idea they are being observed by others via the Internet, let alone that they are having their image painted and preserved. … I want these paintings to raise questions of privacy and how modern technology is affecting our lives. …”

Mel Machen '71
Retired Art Teacher (now teaching part-time), Mountain Brook High School, Birmingham

Reflected Color, oil on canvas,
36” x 48”

“I was inspired by a Whistler etching of a bridge in Venice … that's where the circle and square come from … the rest is from my imagination. It is made up of intense colors contrasting warm and cool. All my career I've been interested in colors … the relationships of colors.”

Branko Medenica '72
International Sculptor, Birmingham

Sacred Tears, cast bronze, 8'

“This piece installed in Tuscumbia, Alabama, is a memorial to the forced march of the Native Americans during the Trail of Tears. The essence of my work evolves from an exploration of both the physical and psychological movement in man in interaction with the spectrum of influences inherent in nature. … I incorporate fluid forms, minimal line, segments of motion, or combinations of these and other elements to create a visual dialogue of movement.”

Falling Away, color photograph

John Baxter '02
Senior Manager, Thomas Moore Studios, Baltimore, Md.

Falling Away, color photograph

“Inspired by the natural architectural features that surround me, this piece speaks of the color and vibrance of the true ‘inner city.' Most residents bypass everyday infrastructure without a thought, while some revel in the ingenuity and commitment of generations of laborers who built the sewers, waterways, and runoffs in any major city. This photograph depicts an $8.3 million sewer renovation in Baltimore … from the inside out.”

Jim Neel '71
Assistant Professor of Art and Director of the Durbin Gallery, Birmingham-Southern College

Dejar las Huellas en la Tierra Dura (To Leave One's Mark in the Hard Earth), installation, terra cotta, black river stones, and petroleum oil, 120” in diameter

“The footprints of a small child track an arc across a field of wet clay. The clay dries and hardens in the sun, preserving the path. A pool of black petroleum oil seems to float in the middle of the cracked and broken circle, a perfect elliptical mirror. The child's footprints in the clay reference the track of Australopithicus Afarensis prints discovered in Laetoli, Tanzania—the dried, cracked clay the plight of cultures across the globe that are marginalized by the unchecked consumption of the technologically driven.”

Willard Whitson '70
Director of Exhibits, The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, Pa.

Canada Sky to Michigan, oil on canvas, 48” x 72”

“This painting is typical of one facet of my work; I vacillate between two approaches to painting. I usually either create expansive landscapes with lots of sky that, although representational, stylistically have their roots in abstract expressionism, or I

paint figurative images and still lifes that are tightly realistic, tending toward trompe l'oeil.

A compulsive photographer, I take many images on my frequent journeys, documenting the routes as well as the destinations. This painting resulted from one of those travels.”