Marina Mangubi and Walter Zurko Present Faculty Exhibitions

Written by John Finn 330-263-2145 Email Story | Print Story

October 8, 2004

collar yoke (2004) by Walter Zurko

WOOSTER, Ohio - Marina Mangubi and Walter Zurko, faculty members in the Department of Art at The College of Wooster, will present work from their recent research leaves in exhibitions scheduled for Oct. 22 through Dec. 5 at The College of Wooster Art Museum in Ebert Art Center. The opening reception will be Friday, Oct. 22 from 7-9 p.m., during which both artists will give gallery talks beginning at 8 p.m.

Mangubi, assistant professor of art, will present "Eight Board Feet" in the Burton D. Morgan Gallery. This exhibition features a series of landscapes painted on standard two-by-four strips of lumber. Mangubi will also be a speaker at the "Conversation in the Gallery" on Thursday, Nov. 11, from noon to 1 p.m.

Zurko, professor of art at Wooster, will present "hand/i/work" in the Sussel Gallery. His exhibition of wood sculpture evokes images of craft and employs the visual vernacular of agrarian tools.

Mangubi, who teaches painting, drawing, and printmaking at Wooster, transforms average pieces of wood into panoramic landscapes. This series of landscapes on two-by-fours was completed during the past five years. Originally sketched from the back of her pickup truck in remote areas of Oregon and Ohio, and painted in the oil-on-board tradition of the Northern Baroque masters, the exhibition will also feature new work completed during a research leave in France.

Beginning by drawing in drypoint from nature, Mangubi creates composite landscapes that incorporate real and imaginary scenes strung along the "eight board feet" of her painting supports. Included in the exhibition is Mangubi's "interpretation" of the Killbuck Marsh.

Mangubi's inspiration for landscape painting can be traced back to her childhood in the Soviet Union, where she was influenced by an eclectic collection of Russian and Western European art that filled her family's two-room apartment. "The scenes were quiet and devoid of luster or any saccharine sentiment," says Mangubi. "They may have been decorative and formulaic, but to a young painter growing up in a totalitarian society, they were glimpses of a perfect world the way a seventeenth century Dutch or Flemish master artist saw it."

Cassis (2004) by Marina Mangubi

Although originally trained in ceramics, Zurko, who teaches sculpture, ceramics, and drawing at Wooster, shifted to working with wood about 15 years ago. Consistent throughout his clay and wood sculpture is the artist's interest in a very specific kind of visual vernacular that deals with the implications of utility, tools, and tool making. "Old tools have a resonance I respond to and are often seen as a type of neutralized 'relic.'" he says. "Found not in sacred spaces but in antique shops where they may be sold as decorative objects, they acquire vastly different meanings depending on the context in which they are placed. For example, a yoke hanging in a barn suggests the authenticity of labor. Hung in a family room, it functions as a repository for collective nostalgia.

"For this group of work completed in the past year, I purposely selected only tool forms meant to be used by two or more people," adds Zurko. "Laundry baskets have two sets of handles, the yokes are designed for three or four people, and the scraper is too large for one person to use." Enlarged in scale and subtly transformed, Zurko's sculptures speak to the history of collective effort.

The College of Wooster Art Museum is open Tuesday through Friday from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 1-5 p.m. All receptions, lectures, exhibitions, and performances are free and open to the public. Group tours are also available. This exhibition and related events are supported, in part, by the Ohio Arts Council with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, educational excellence, and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans.

For more information, or to schedule a group tour, please call 330-263-2388 or visit www.wooster.edu/artmuseum.