Work by Joseph D’Uva is on display as part of the “Customized Vistas” exhibit at UMSL’s Gallery Visio.
Joseph D’Uva and Summer Zickefoose have created a new body of artwork inspired by rural and suburban landscapes. The husband and wife team’s work is on display through May 16 in Gallery Visio at the University of Missouri–St. Louis.
The exhibit, “Customized Vistas,” revolves around the idea of fabricated or idealized landscapes drawn from Zickefroose’s rural roots in northern Iowa and D’Uva’s suburban upbringing in coastal Florida. For both artists, the landscape represents a physical location in which their personal histories and memories become the metaphoric terrain.
Using a variety of old and new printmaking techniques, D’Uva’s work is generated from notions of childhood, pop culture and Americana. Toys, games and patterns pervade his images, and each work facilitates a relationship between memory and object. Through the act of reconstructing, distorting and obscuring memory, his art questions viewers’ recollections of the past and exposes the object as an unstable visual document.
Like D’Uva, Zickefoose’s art is grounded in the past. Her works, which range from ceramics, sculpture, installation, performance and video, are deeply influenced by Midwestern and rural Amercian landscapes. Comparing her art to archeology, Zickefoose explores places, cultures and objects in an attempt to unearth hidden secrets of a bygone era. Using her findings, she then reinvents a visual vernacular in which layers of history are revealed and evolving customs are uncovered.
The Gallery Visio Student Association at UMSL founded Gallery Visio in 2001 as an alternative art venue committed to exhibiting art by UMSL students, faculty, staff and alumni, as well as emerging artists. The gallery is a student-run space in 170 Millennium Student Center on UMSL’s North Campus, 1 University Blvd. in St. Louis County (63121).
Regular hours are from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Admission to the exhibit is free and open to the public.
More information:
umsl.edu/~galvisio
josephduva.com
summerzickefoose.com
