Home Arts & Lifestyle Linda Vredeveld Gallery Closing

Linda Vredeveld Gallery Closing

by 'Burnian Staff

When you approach a painting by Linda Vredeveld, you may not think much of them. At first glance her large canvases covered in simple, abstract shapes may seem too sparse, with only simple brush strokes and flecks of paint. When one steps closer though, shapes that at first seemed simplistic in fact contain minute details that the artist painstakingly applied to the canvas.

Adjunct Art Professor Christopher Day has known Vredeveld for nearly two decades and contacted her about showing her work in the Visual Arts Center (VAC) gallery. “I’ve known about Linda and her work ever since ’98 when we started teaching together at Florissant Valley,” said Day. According to Day, it was not her artwork but her attitude and teaching ability that inspired him to contact her in the first place. “She is a great teacher, especially with more conceptual issues, and seeing that she produces such a good quality of the conceptual works with the students… I hold her in very high regard for that.”

Vredeveld’s paintings were appreciated by Blackburn art students. Fine art major Adriana Hambrick is currently working on her senior seminar show and has been creating abstract paintings to display for most of the semester. Hambrick, who also works in the Art Department found inspiration in Vredeveld’s work: “Looking at my paintings, people may think it’s just a bunch of lines or I just threw paint on the paper, but really it’s much more than that. Looking at [Vredeveld’s] artwork you can see that she is trying to communicate something,” said Hambrick. “It’s similar to what I’m trying to do with my art. Seeing other people doing this is relieving because I know I’m not the only one doing this.”

Although the event was well attended by faculty and members of the community, Day was disappointed with student turnout for the event. “Unfortunately I don’t think the students at Blackburn feel that we are putting on these events to enrich their lives,” said Day. The lack of art majors in attendance was especially disheartening to Day, who would have liked to see a lot more interaction between Vredeveld and art students. “Unless we show that it is for a grade or extra credit, most students simply won’t show up, and that doesn’t look good as an art major.”

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