Two exhibits open today at the Kennedy of Museum of Art - one depicting Vietnamese life through watercolor and the other exploring dream life through sculpture.
Frederick Harris' exhibit Traveling with a Brush in Vietnam is a series of about 50 watercolor and sumi paintings. Harris traveled through Vietnam for about two years, painting on site.
Sumi is a Japanese painting technique that involves the manipulation of ink and results in a monochromatic image, said James Wyman, director of the Kennedy Museum.
The paintings depict everything from landscapes and Vietnamese ruins to popular gathering places such as markets. It also presents fishing and the fishing industry as part of the lifestyle, Wyman said.
It's a real range from figurative works like these - depictions of common scenes
to architecture of Vietnam landscape Wyman said.
Conversely, Gregory Barsamian's exhibit Time and Tribulations is a series of sculptures created by fixing many individual sculptures to welded armatures spinning to a timed strobe light to create a filmic, dreamlike state, Wyman said.
What you're seeing is a projection of about 20 frames per second in film
he said. It's the same thing but in three dimensions. Each one is kind of a film cell projected at a rate that gives the sense of continuity and motion.
The strobe lights break up each of the images, Barsamian said.
You're in a dark room
and the only light you're seeing is from a strobe light - the only time it flashes is when an image is right in front of you
he said. Then the next one rotates into position and flash - it gives you that image
and then the next one and - flash. So it breaks them up into individual cells
otherwise you'd just be seeing blurry spinning objects.
The exhibits will remain in the museum until June 13.
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