The Pump Gallery of Flood Fine Arts Center Presents:
Pamela Wellman
Revelations of Reason:
An Investigation Through Painting of the Personal Religion of Learning
Friday, March 6th from 7-10pm
In his seminal anthropological work Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, Emile Durkheim observes that religion, no matter how arcane or fantastic, “translates some human need, some aspect of life, either individual or societal.” For better or for worse, however, religion is no longer the central organizing principal of our culture. In the absence of religion, then, what thing (or, more likely, things), is taking the place of religion and filling this human need? The paintings in this exhibition are an exploration of this interaction with learning, thought and the personal symbolism that result from exploration. Wellman talks about her body of work: “Individually they represent different ways of thinking about knowledge. As a whole, they constitute a survey of the personal religion of knowing that I have identified in myself over the past four years.”
Wellman has long found much of her inspiration for painting from poetry. She states: “Poetry shares an emphasis on visual imagery, a necessary focus of topic, and a relative immediacy for the reader that makes it easier to align with painting than any other form of the written word.” The poetry of Wallace Stevens, T.S. Eliot, Mary Oliver and others have become her mantra and the meditative repetition of their lines of verse both soothes and uplifts. The order and patterns of the natural world echo this role. Birds, with their innumerable and colorful multiplicity, have become intrinsic to her religious representation as both symbols and saints.
Durkheim identified religion as a social phenomenon: a system that ultimately brings people together. These paintings were created in private, but as John Butler Yeats (a painter and the father of W.B. Yeats) once noted, “the work of art is the social act of the solitary man.” Wellman’s goal is that these paintings, completed in private from her private ruminations, will resonate for the viewer with the personal spirituality that inspired them.
Pamela Wellman will graduate Summa Cum Laude with distinction in May 2009 from UNC Asheville with degrees in Literature and Painting. Her artistic promise garnered her the New Leaf Art Scholarship in 2006 and the Art Materials Award in 2008. She is an active scholar and has given presentations at academic conferences in four states. In 2006 she was commissioned by the school to help design and execute a permanent public hanging sculpture with both iron and textile elements, and to research the archival qualities of various textiles for the piece. In addition to being accomplished in both drawing and painting, she is a skilled textile artist and has been quilting for over ten years.
Pamela grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. She was home-schooled until she enrolled in college and she feels that this accounts for much of her self-motivation. Home-schooling also allowed her the time to work and raise money to backpack all around the United States. Revelations of Reason will be on display in the Pump Gallery of the Flood Fine Arts Center from March 6 through March 31.
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