Sheron Rupp: "Dialogue with a Collection"

     The University Gallery at UMASS Amherst is currently featuring the exhibit “Sheron Rupp: Dialogue with a Collection,” the second in a series of annual exhibits.  The exhibit invites artists to study the UMass art collection and organize an exhibit that dialogues their study. Rupp was invited by the Director of the art gallery, Loretta Yarlow, to curate an exhibit that incorporates pieces from the UMass Fine Arts Collection as well as her own art work.  

     “Dialogue with a Collection” allowed Rupp to interpret the works done by other artists, so that spectators might also obtain a different view of the artwork. “I started looking at the collection,” she explained, “which is about 2,400 different paintings, prints, photographs, by doing a lot of research online, as well as looking at what had been put on a computer base in the gallery, as well as physically going into the storage rooms to discover, or uncover, works by artists which had not really seen the light of day, or had been exhibited before.” Sheron Rupp was inspired by the abstraction in the works that she was viewing: “I was not trying to achieve anything- merely an exhibit of works of art on paper which I liked and was drawn to.  Hence, it is probably a glance at my personal way of seeing art.  There were, for some reason, some genres in the art field which I was not interested in showing.”

     Rupp finds inspiration for her own art through looking at other artists work. It was very clear that she yearned for knowledge through watching other painters and photographers. Her works pay tribute to the artists before her lifetime. “I love making pictures, using a camera, but do not spend time thinking about myself as an artist.  That's someone else's job to decide,” Rupp stated.  The exhibit ends on March 29th.  For more information about the collection, please visit the website: http://www.umass.edu/umhome/events/articles/82723.php.

By Aviana Dickerson

3/27/2009