Artist couple deviate in medium but not meaning

By Estela Fuentes
Contributing Writer

Ocean  campus’ City Arts gallery opened its first show of the spring semester  on Jan. 19, featuring two artists who work in different medias and  methods to evoke a common theme.

At first look it may not be obvious amid the visual disparity that both artists were inspired by the concept of identity.

The  artists are a married couple, Aaron Fine and Priya Kambli, both of whom  are art professors at Truman University in Kirksville, Mo.

Fine’s  “First Words Series” is composed of long sheets of white paper with  pencil sketches. The sketches are colored in and/or shaded in with  acrylic paint to resemble children’s book illustrations. Each piece has a  word written backwards, printed with rubber stamps of individual  letters.

The  series is a set of about 20 flash cards, each one representing first  words Fine’s son learned. In an artist statement he explains that words  are sometimes considered useless, but that it would be very difficult to  use only 20 words to describe yourself.

In  Fine’s painted flash card titled “First Word House,” a sketch of a  small mound at the top of the page is shaded green with branches in the  background. It is surrounded by a moss-green ground that breaks down to a  set of connected branches where a stream flows down and falls on the  roof of a house.

The  house is what first catches the eye. It is sketched out as a building  made of blocks in all shapes and sizes. Each shape is a different color,  resembling toy building blocks.

Kambli’s  works are all inkjet printouts of photos but are more than simple  portraits or snapshots. Her pieces are composed of digital photos and  photo collages she has made with old family photos.

Kambli’s  photos represent what she calls her “hybrid identity” — a mixture of  her Indian culture and the culture she was exposed to when she moved to  the United States.

From  Kambli’s collection, “Muma and Me (Gold Earrings)” is the most  striking. The piece is a set of three images combined into one. Unlike  many traditional collages, each of the three images can stand on its  own.

First  is a black and white image of a young girl standing behind what looks  like a sheet of white floral lace, so only her head and a few branches  are visible at the top of the sheet.
Next  for the eye to take in is a color photo depicting a pair of gold hoop  earrings, sitting one on top of the other on a white background.

From  the back of the collage comes the image of a woman with sheer white  fabric wrapped around her head, draped over her shoulder and across her  body.

The  show will be at the City Arts gallery located in the Visual Arts  building until Feb. 17. Gallery hours are Monday-Wednesday 12:30-4:30  p.m. and Thursday 12:30 - 3:30 p.m.