Uptown UNCC Gallery

 

             I really enjoyed the gallery space. I spent a lot of my early childhood years and late teen years in downtown Charlotte, through which a creative admiration and a sense of home reside. The gallery was very well lit through natural light, where one side of the conceptually four wall gallery had windows facing outside and another side had glass which faced the building. I would love to have been at the gallery past dusk to see what the lighting would have been like. The building was set in a modern style, white toned walls and modern fixtures, including two triangular prism pieces which held three pieces on each side. 

              The piece I chose was One May, One, an acrylic on canvas by Marge Loudon Moody. Off the bat, reading the artist biographies at the entry Moody seemed interesting. She seemed to be one of the older artists, having graduated form an Art College in Scotland in 1972.

               One May, One is an abstract piece which emphasizes the pastel colors of the piece. The upper and middle sections of the piece house a pink pastel while the lower side sections have the background of alternating pastel oranges and yellows which square off to each other. A bright candy apple red streaks down the middle blurred by a cross-streak of tonal, almost watery blues which mix in with the red to create darker ultramarine mixed with Princeton orange and sea green in wide circular brush strokes. 

Those wavy brush strokes turn in to two wide single-line circles in the middle, going right back to the wavy strokes at the top. It seems like the squares, watery blues, and circles converge at the murky middle. The only thing out of “pattern” is a long wide brush strokes which sweeps the bottom of the piece which curves upward toward the mid-section of the piece which abruptly stops. 

              Everything I’ve said about the piece specifically applies to why I chose it and why I felt like describing it was important even though I uploaded a photo, because people view art differently even though we all see the same canvas. We paint our own thoughts and filter experiences on top of it.

               I grew up listening to music. Specifically Beatles music. This was an important part of my entire life as they have been the base for all my musical and art expression as well as views on that time period and the world. As I got older and started choosing that which I listened to and what I saw, I still listened to the Beatles for a bit, around the Yellow Submarine and Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band era. 

               The images and music itself was what drew me in to start, but has had a different meaning to me at different points in my life. When I was beginning to do art and music it was the sheer creation of music and multi-dimensional art (music, art, and idea). Each meant something to me at a different period in my life, often more than one at a time. The music and art went back and forth between middle and early high school, junior year the art and ideas appealed to me and senior year it was personal development and expression of that development. 

                 If Moody graduated in 1972 she would have been around 20 or 22 not counting a gap year, which means she would have been impressionable during that art movement and influence, even focusing on landscapes. Between the pastel colors and minor water reflection and entire convergence, that is what that period of the Beatles were all about. That which inspired psychedelic music, peace and equality movements, and greater self-understanding. Something of which I saw in this piece. 

 

                 Given my filter on the piece, there are more than a few cultural themes explored in the piece. Personal beliefs illustrated in art: love, expression, and open-mindedness are just a few that seem to be the most prominent that come across to me in this piece. I think love is most illustrated through the colors, expression between the different parts, and open-mindedness in the main convergence of all the colors. 

                  As to the title, One May, One sounds like the beginning of May. May happens to be tied for my favorite time of the year, where the summer begins and where my birthday is. It didn’t play a lot into my own interpretation of the piece, nor did it seem to factor into specifically what the artist intended the piece to represent apart from the month or a person. The title does add to my appreciation of the piece as it adds another layers. 

                   It is important to know that One May, One is a single piece a part of a four piece set, which includes One May, One, One May, Two, One May, Three, and One May, Four. All of these emphasize movement in abstract art, some including vast pastel colors and others contrasting black and white which hints of colors like blue. I enjoyed the set of pieces but the first spoke to me the most.

                  All in all I really enjoyed the Center City Gallery visit. Between being in downtown Charlotte and some of the pieces also reflecting my childhood I thoroughly enjoyed the abstract exhibit and the gallery space itself.