University at Buffalo Art Gallery to Host Installations of Work by Four UB Artists

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The University at Buffalo Art Gallery will host four installations in the second floor gallery for artists and UB Master of Fine Arts candidates Jay Ariaz, Wanyen Chou, Rachael Hetzel and Kate S. Parzych. The exhibition will open with a reception in UB Art Gallery on April 21 from 5-8 p.m. and will be on view through May 7.

UB Art Gallery located in the Center for the Arts on the UB North (Amherst) Campus, is open Tuesday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, please call 716-645-6912. The exhibition is free and open to the public.

"It is our mission to present exhibitions of cutting-edge contemporary art," said Sandra H. Olsen, Ph.D., director of UB Art Galleries, "and what could be more cutting-edge than the work of emerging artists whose training has required them to continually push boundaries? I look forward to welcoming the community to see the work of these intriguing artists."

Niagara Falls is one of this region's most photographed landmarks. Despite this, Ariaz, who holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Kansas City Art Institute, pursued the idea that a fresh perspective for photographing the wonder remained for his taking. By documenting hand-painted murals of Niagara Falls, located within the local community, he indeed grasps more than the power and beauty of the flowing water. His photographic installation, "A Spectacular Fall," reveals an urban and cultural landscape that exists in contrast to the tourist attraction thus communicating a previously untold story of deterioration and loss.

Chou's installation, "Dream," uses her experiences as an Asian student living in an American city to explore the difficulties caused by drastic changes in environment as one moves from one culture to another. She uses her work to reveal her own sense of isolation, confusion and loss of identity brought on by language barriers and new cultural practices and seeks to challenge viewers to imagine themselves in similar circumstances. From Taipei, Taiwan, Chou received her Bachelor of Arts from the National Hualien Teacher's College in Hualien, Taiwan.

Hetzel's installation of large scale screen-prints and books focuses on issues of gendered roles within the family structure and the fluidity of memory. Through her screen-prints she seeks to relate the causes of oppression within the family structure and disclose hidden ways in which women exert power within their families. Hetzel received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking from SUNY College at Brockport in 2003.

Parzych, a Western New York native living in Akron, N.Y., holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography from UB. Using the photographic image as a starting point for books and installations that explore how family relationships are constructed in adult memories, representing an individual's own concept of childhood and play. Her installation "Don't Tape Things to the Walls" begins with a display of vintage clip-on ties, hand-embroidered with stern parental commands, then leads the viewer to subtly participate in the subversion of these mandates.

The UB Art Gallery is funded by The Visual Arts Building Fund, The Seymour H. Knox Foundation Fine Arts Fund, and The Fine Arts Center Endowment.