Travel-inspired art on display
Exhibit makes Underground trip worthwhile
Exhibit makes Underground trip worthwhile

By John Brandenburg

Published: July 27, 2007

People walking to or from work in The Underground, the new name for the renovated concourse tunnels under Oklahoma City, may find their appetite for vacation trips whetted by a show on view in the Invited Artist Gallery.

Seven Oklahoma artists display artwork based on trips to various parts of the world in the exhibit "Traveling Through Artists' Eyes,” curated by Julia Kirt, executive director of the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition.

Norman artist Debby Kaspari contributes digital prints of annotated classical pencil drawings of birds and vegetation based on trips to Australia, Costa Rica and Panama.

Kaspari's drawings allow us to contemplate such things as the formidable, buttressed roots and "soft … rain of petals” at the foot of a "Dipteryx Tree” in Panama, or a "melange” of birds in Australia.

Lighter-hearted and more wittily annotated are the digitally reproduced sketchbook pages of a second Norman artist, Sue Clancy, based on a spring trip to the Oregon Coast she made this year.

Clancy's sketchbook contains some nicely handled drawings of people (at restaurants or waiting to rent a car) and places (such as still snow-covered mountain ranges and ocean vistas).

Even more charming are Clancy's pictures of animals. Among these are whales, elks, dogs, a cat named "Normal” at an inn and a "bad drawing” of a moose, done "without looking at my pen or hand.”

Betty Wood, also of Norman, takes a new approach to collage in a group of oil-on-canvas tag prints, based on a trip to Costa Rica.

In this series, Wood captures Costa Rican flora and fauna, including leaf, feather and butterfly imagery, displayed on tags or scraps of paper, hung behind glass, inside empty box frames, or pasted to a scroll hung from a small branch.

Collages and digital color photographs by Piedmont artist Annalisa Campbell get across the shift from violence to better times in Northern Ireland.

Conveying this nicely is her collage of colorful, frolicking street acrobats who "remind us that if the people of Northern Ireland continue to build on each other, there will be even better times.”

Underlining the point is Campbell's digital color photograph of a musical "Gathering at the Pub,” displayed in a rough wooden window-like frame, as if we were peering in from the street.

Offering us large color photographs of sights in London and Norway are Oklahoma City artist Romy Owens and Norman artist Daisy Patton.

In "ndergro,” Owens zeroes in on part of a sign for the London Underground, while in "Fish Market Worker,” Patton catches her subject looking away from a not particularly impressive display of fish for sale in Norway.

Communicating the spirit of "Wanderlust” in a series of digital color photos taken in such cities as New York City, Berlin and Tokyo is Lindsay artist Benjy Russell.

Particularly hypnotic are Russell's pictures of a yellowish-green, neon-lit escalator at "a super posh hotel” in New York, and of a downward spiraling staircase that seems to lead us into a magic kingdom at a thrift store in Berlin.

The group exhibit is well-worth visiting during its run through Oct. 5.

— John Brandenburg

Comments