Arts & Culture

UK Little/Gaines Artist Explores 'Line as Form'

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LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 7, 2011) − The final presentation in the Little/Gaines series, sponsored by University of Kentucky's Lucille C. Little Fine Arts Library and Learning Center and Gaines Center for the Humanities, features UK's own Shannon Ruhl as this month's Little/Gaines Artist and her collaborators and classmates, Benjamin Kolder and Leah Rees. While their work will exhibit through March on the second floor of Little Library, the free public presentation and discussion of the work will begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 8, in the Niles Gallery, in the Little Library.

Shannon Ruhl, Benjamin Kolder and Leah Rees, all second-year UK College of Design students, titled their exhibit "Line as Form" which strives to push the definition of a line to go beyond the seeming limitation of the two-dimensional. Lines are often typified as having only a certain role in visual art, "Line as Form" will illustrate how everyday lines create form throughout our surroundings; from urban and pastoral to digital and natural. The presentation seeks to reflect the constancy of line while transforming it from traditional understanding to more dynamic and reactive.

Ruhl, a native of Louisville, is currently studying architecture in the College of Design. Growing up in Louisville, she was drawn to the arts community and studied visual art and art history extensively in high school. Even in her design projects now, Ruhl finds herself employing the use of drawing and collage throughout her creative processes in problem solving.

Ruhl's collaborators, Kolder and Rees, also study architecture in the College of Design. Kolder, from the northwest suburbs of Chicago, has always had a fascination with cities and their architecture. Visual arts have played a large role in his personal and educational background, and his artistic talents have led to various opportunities to engage in local projects within his community. More recently, Kolder’s found a passion for photography and its relationship with design.

Rees, a native of the North Georgia mountains, found art to be a tool for communication as well as a way to pass time at a young age. Her primary interest is within the process of creation. In her recent work this often embodies the moment of conception through a simplification of form and process. Rees finds the exploration of form in architectural study to be about the emotive and sensual experience of space. 

This is the second season of the popular collaborative series, which showcases the work of Kentucky artists and brings together artists in the same or different genres or mediums around a unifying principle or theme. This year six Little/Gaines Artists teamed up with one or more collaborators in visual, literary, musical or dramatic arts to stage unique exhibitions as part of the series presented at the Niles Gallery. Each show lasts approximately an hour and a half and includes a reception.

For more information on the Little/Gaines Artist Series or on the Shannon Ruhl presentation, contact Gail Kennedy, director of Little Fine Arts Library, at (859) 257-4631, or Lisa Broome-Price, associate director of the Gaines Center, at (859) 257-1537, or visit the series on Facebook at www.facebook.com/LittleGainesArtistSeries.

MEDIA CONTACT: Whitney Hale, (859) 257-1754 ext. 229, Whitney.Hale@uky.edu