SYNERGY

Synergy
at Mercyhurst University
An Art Review

Synergy: The interaction of elements that when combined produce a total effect greater than the sum of the individual elements.

Currently at Mercyhurst University’s Cummings Art Gallery  several artists contributed 43 creations in different mediums”photography, glasswork, sculpture and more”to create Synergy, a show that seeks to create a collective aesthetic environment  surpassing individual efforts. 

According to a press release: This exhibit gathers a group of artists specializing in different mediums and materials that, when housed within one space, channel a similar energy through color, space, and material. Digital art and manipulated photography are juxtaposed with glass and metal, producing a clear, vivid energy… reflective, translucent, metallic, with fields of color and light in space.

Western Mountains Majestic, a large print black and white photograph by Jack B. Anon, portrays a snow-covered mountain vista that would rival anything by Ansel Adams. The image when viewed close up is even more majestic when comprehending the mountain’s size: full-grown trees on the mountain’s slope resemble the size of matchsticks. 

Conversely, Sunflower Landscape by Barbara Yerace is another landscape produced in an entirely different manner.  A tiny creation of colorful glass beads, it portrays a spectrum sky of blues, orange, red and mauve above a green field containing sunflowers.

Approximately six-feet tall, Legato (see above), is an abstract metal sculpture by Evan Everhart. A brown, bent rusted framework encompasses several silver rods that seem to serve as ribs guarding its interior.

Shoreline Light, a photo modified on metallic paper by Greg Zbach, is a landscape study in shades of blues near a shoreline ridge of bare trees guarding the terrain beyond.  

  When viewing the show there is a definite sense of synergy; an ebb and flow between the artworks as they relate to one another. 

Out of many, one indeed.

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Synergy continues through December 8, at Cummings Art Gallery, at Mary D™Angelo Performing Arts Center, Mercyhurst™s campus. For  more information or to schedule private viewing tours, contact Jessica Stadtmueller at [email protected] or 814-824-2092.

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