The responses for the 2014 Library Art Award were varied and included multimedia, videos, photographs, poems, essays, paintings, prints and musical compositions. Judges looked for works that were not only inventive but also reflected a thoughtful interpretation of a work of art in the library.
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Undergraduate Winner
Jacqueline Ali’s stop motion animation was created in response to Alexander Calder’s Stabile.
Ali’s video is a thoughtful and clever portrayal of Calder’s study and the creative process. By using animation and a playful look and feel, Ali’s video displays some of the same qualities we see in many of Calder’s sculptures.
Undergraduate Honorable Mention
Zhanna Bubnova’s Splayed Palms was inspired by Kathe Kollwitz’s Praying Girl.
Formally ambitious and challenging to construct, Bubnova’s sestina poem is a very expressive and vivid imagining of parent, child and prayer. Try reading it aloud for maximum effect.
Undergraduate Honorable Mention
Tracy V. Pierre The Tree Hugger Becomes the Tree 100.6702 was inspired by Jim Lee’s Receding Orchard.
Pierre was the photographer, stylist, designer and makeup artist for this very thoughtful and resourceful original photograph. .
Graduate Winner
Katharine Ryals’ Windows was inspired by David Deutsch’s Rotunda.
Ryal’s work is exceptional for its originality and powerful interpretation of the Rotunda painting. Using a complicated photographic process, she manipulated tintype plates to obscure the subject matter similar to the indecipherable images in the Rotunda painting. She then photographed the tintypes and scanned them into the computer creating a mosaic pattern resembling the Rotunda painting in the final print. Her sepia toned images and choice of a diptych form reinforces the feeling of antiquity that is tangible in the Deutsch painting.
Graduate Honorable Mention
Matthew Blair’s short story, Philip Guston was inspired by the Untitled, From the Suite of Ten Lithographs.
Blair’s imaginative short story cleverly weaves together the Brooklyn College Library, Guston’s art, abstract expressionism, representation, and a painter’s life. It is often humorous and ironic.
