The walls of the University Center (UCENT) at Arizona State University came alive through paintings with vibrant colors, drawings and mixed-media conceptions as part of an exhibit from the College of Public Programs.
The exhibit, “Mapping: Movement and Memory,” contained little of what could be used as an actual map to find a location; instead, the exhibit featured modern interpretations of what a map means or does. The exhibit is on the first three floors of the building near Central Avenue and Taylor Street.
A love of maps was the inspiration to put the exhibit together, said Carrie Tovar, the curator of art at ASU’s College of Public Programs. Tovar’s own work was featured alongside pieces by local artists, students and other ASU faculty. Her piece, on construction paper, featured butterflies cut from maps of Paris, her favorite city. Another “map,” drawn by Tovar’s uncle, detailed sights along a route to an eatery in Paris.
Another piece featured a grade-school student’s map of the human brain. It included sections for different important things in a child’s life – school, play and a section marked “boys.” A different artist used a map of the Phoenix metro area with conspicuous gold dots to memorialize all the places where she had cried in the city. A kindergartener mapped out the moves to a dance she wanted to remember; there were stick figures to guide the viewer along the path of intricate movements.
Michael Pupillo, a middle-school art teacher in the Alhambra Elementary School District, contributed three pieces to the exhibit.
A mixed-media piece on wood titled “Every Watery Eye” is a social commentary on how memories are the internal map of our lives, he said.
“It’s really easy for people to walk around in the gray area if it (a social problem) doesn’t affect you,” Pupillo said. “Life has a way of putting a lot on your plate.”
The artist is telling the viewer to “look at what we are not seeing,” said Michael Pryzdia, a lecturer in the ASU School of Interdisciplinary and Liberal Studies.
“I often teach my students the importance of seeing what’s actually going on,” Pryzdia said. “Very few people see what they are thinking, how they are thinking and how those thoughts influence their experiences.”
The College of Public Programs reaches out to the community each semester with an art exhibition involving local artists and students.
Tovar said it was a challenge to make the art stand out from other, more necessary features on the walls such as light switches, fire alarms and other necessities of any office building. However, Pryzdia said he thinks Tovar accomplished this goal.
“She does a great job of having the art pop out. A lot of buildings have art on the walls, but there’s something about this building,” Pryzdia said.
Tovar gives tours by appointment on weekdays at UCENT. The exhibit, which is free to the public, began Oct. 1 and will run until Dec. 3.
Contact the reporter at Tegodfre@asu.edu
