While rummaging through the depths of a closet, you might come across something you made a long while ago. An ancient drawing, a scrawled effort of a poem or scraps of songs, and realize that these echo in your current work. The artists in “Back to School,” on view at The Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum, are part of an exhibition that is like a friendly show-and-tell about the trajectory of an artistic career.
The premise is that examples of their student or early work are shown alongside their more current projects. Participants are at widely varied stages of their careers. JoAnna Poehlmann, now in her mid-80s, still glows with enthusiasm in describing her practice, while other artists are yet at a nascent stage, self-described as still emerging in their professional capacity.
For the viewer, an immediate point of interest may be in guessing which pieces are earlier and which are later. However, what becomes even more insightful is musing on the threads that seem to span time. In his images of his father, Jon Horvath bridges photographs, with ironic twists on a superhero archetype, to a Sisyphean video of water balloon tossing between father and son.
An important aspect of this show is that it highlights unfamiliar facets of an artist’s practice. Nina Ghanbarzadeh is well known for her conceptual work using Farsi text, taking her native language as a visual and metaphorical motif. A current piece, fashioned in a ball of dried acrylic paint, features the repeated phrase “I am alive,” inspired by the poet Rumi. She also shows an early two-paneled painting on canvas, The Crowd, a street scene from her native Iran. It introduces her background as a painter, and thematically connects her current work and connection to heritage.
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“Back to School” offers a brief glimpse into a longer sense of evolution, an acknowledgement that the work and interests we have today are inevitably part of the path that creates our future. All of our past and present efforts are inevitably carried with us, whether in physical or remembered form.
Through Jan. 28, 2018 at Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum, 2220 N. Terrace Ave.
