East Gallery
Gloria Abella de Duncan
Meditations on Time and Memory
September 4 thru November 5, 2006
Gloria
Abella de Duncan’s exhibit Meditations on
Time and Memory explores
the metaphysical through dramatic metaphorical imagery. Her work is
a fragmented depiction of memories that reflect past, present and future
experiences. Within a single image, the viewer extracts emotion from
a multitude of meanings derived from the artist’s intrinsic hidden
world.
Abella de Duncan’s art also stems from her multi-cultural heritage. Growing up in South America of Spanish Jewish heritage resulted in a multilayered world view that presents itself through a variety of meaning within a particular image. Symbols and metaphors are vividly strewn across her canvas.
“My experiences of living in various countries have given me
a sense of exile,” said Abella de Duncan. “Stylized figures
float in space and their color and placement is frequently unexpected,
contradictory and ambiguous. They do not portray the outward appearance
of reality per se, but my perception of an inner reality based on my
experience of exile, displacement and the fantasies that develop out
of the multiple identities that I live as a woman who is Jewish, Columbian
and who lives the American experience now.”
Currently a studio artist and lecturer at Oklahoma Baptist University
in Shawnee, Abella de Duncan is also a faculty member at the Oklahoma
City Museum of Art School. She has exhibited in several countries including
Japan and Israel. Honors received by the artist include Oklahoma Visual
Artist Coalition Artist Award of Excellence, National Endowment for
the Arts Fellowship Award and the Leslie Powell Foundation Biennial
First Prize. She has served as a visiting artist in several universities
including the University of Essex and the Chamberwell School of Art
in England, the University of Xinjiang in China, Mishkan Omanin in
Herzlya, Israel, as well as universities in Puerto Rico and Columbia.
Abella de Duncan once worked with two of America’s most iconic
artists of the 20th century, John Cage and Larry Rivers. Cage was an
experimental music composer, writer, and visual artist whose unfocused
desire to create led to fusions between visual art and music often
influenced by surrealism and pop culture. Larry Rivers is known as
the “Grandfather” of pop art, an art movement influenced
by popular culture and everyday items. Rivers joined Allen Ginsberg
in the film Pull My Daisy, an adaptation of the third act of Jack Kerouac’s
unfinished play Beat Generation.
Sponsored by the Oklahoma Arts Council. For more information contact Scott Cowan or Karen Sharp at 405.521.2931 or scott@arts.ok.gov.
The East Gallery is located on the 1st floor of the State Capitol and open daily from 8:00-5:30.