Nontraditional prints and handpainted displays adorn the walls of the UA Gallery as the works of Montgomery artist Sara Dismukes are displayed in her solo exhibition, FRAY.
The exhibition opened on Jan. 9 and will be displayed through Feb. 26, with a reception with Dismukes on Feb. 6.
As both a professor of art and design at Troy University and a studio artist, Dismukes focuses her art on the seemingly insignificant parts of life people pass by every day, highlighting the nostalgia, comfort and tragedy in the degradation of familiar objects.
“All the places that are depicted are things that I’ve seen, and some of them are really local, in my community or part of my commute,” Dismukes said. “Like the palimpsest series, they’re billboards, and they are all hand painted. And I drive by them all the time, and they’re just falling apart.”
The slow, natural destruction of the billboards on the side of the road during Dismukes’ commute to work plays into the messages her viewers take away concerning environmental decay and economic losses.
While the exhibition itself does not have one cohesive theme, Dismukes said that her life in Montgomery and work in Troy were inspirations for the artwork’s foundation. Some pieces are upwards of four years in the making, while others, like the cyanotypes, are only a few months old. This gives the exhibition a broad theme stemming from the personal connections she found in the places she considers personal landmarks.
Dismukes said that we often “miss the boat” within our personal relationships, causing a disconnect in our understanding of one another. This is one of the layers she unpacks in her untraditional approach to landscapes, highlighting scenes that aren’t beautiful.
“Landscape paintings have been really beautiful scenes, and these aren’t, but these are the things that we’re creating. These are the things that we’re surrounding ourselves with,” Dismukes said.
When creating her art, Dismukes uses her inspiration to shape the pieces, but she said that nontraditional strategies, such as the cyanotypes used in the blue pieces on the end, leave less control to the artist, guiding her art in new directions.
“As an artist, I don’t necessarily try to figure that out or try to aim for anything,” Dismukes said. “I really enjoy the process and the kind of unexpected things that happen when you don’t have full control.”
Despite this freeform approach to imbuing meaning and emotion into her artwork, Dismukes said that her use of simple subjects and landscapes guides viewers toward themes of environmental and climate destruction, globalization, economic collapse and memory.
“A viewer brings their own world to something when they see it, their own experiences and objectives, and I think as an artist you have to be willing to create an opportunity for creation,” Dismukes said.
Not all viewers connect with every piece of art, making an exhibition like FRAY appealing to a variety of tastes in art due to its wide range of works and themes. Dismukes said that not all artists have the opportunity to show this many pieces for an extended period of time, making FRAY a unique segment of her artistic journey.
“It’s such a great opportunity to be able to present a wide range of work, so I really appreciate the opportunity,” Dismukes said. “As an artist you put stuff out into the world and it just has to stand on its own.”
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