On Jan. 18, the Coburn Art Gallery opened its show at the Art & Design Department Faculty Exhibition displaying 41 different works from sculptures to prints.  

Each faculty member displayed a different part of the world they designed including Cynthia Petry, director of the Coburn Art Gallery and assistant professor of art, Dan McDonald, assistant professor of art and Emily Fitch adjunct faculty of art education  

Petry created a collage work titled, “Unknown series: Minnesota Jay”. The piece displays a man with blue jays gapping at his face.  

Included in the piece is a map, with the location of where the man lived.  

Petry describes her work saying, “I start looking for other things that I want to add, things that I think will work visually, and the meaning that those things, that I bring in could have for the overall image.”   

The Unknown Series is special to Petry as each piece of this collection features an unknown person’s picture. Petry shares the inspiration behind the whole project was to collect photos and return them. 

“It takes a lot of time to flush out a family tree, find a living relative,” said Petry.  

While she has been able to reunite families with their deceased relatives, several will never find a home.  

She said she gives them a second life in her artwork and collects them to save them from dying in landfills or becoming a commodity.  

She says, “It’s someone’s family history, they deserve to have it back”.  

Petry shares this love saying, “It’s satisfying in some ways. And it’s also interesting. It’s like being an investigator”. 

McDonald introduced his collection “What Gets Kept” stating that the idea behind his project was people hold onto things for “seemingly pointless reasons.” 

The hands in his sculpture collection are displaying a memento. He notes that it began with a project to clean out a portion of his home for another use. He began finding trinkets and reflected on what trinkets individuals choose to keep.  

He mentioned with the creation of the sculpture, there are elements of intuition. He notes that he has an idea of what the outcome will be but allows the journey to “dictate certain dimensions of it.” 

He notes the irony of him taking one of many collected pieces that he does not need to hold on to and giving them new life. 

Fitch shares with her work that she tries to pick things that are symbolic or stories or from her personal experience.  

With her painting “Still Life with Skull”, she talked about how she was thinking about loss and death after COVID. She says that she sat with the idea of death and didn’t want to hide it or fight it but “living with it and moving on”.  

Fitch shares that the way she works with her art is “very subconscious”. She shares that she is drawn to things, begins putting things together, and then realizes the connection.  

She shares that while other artists may plan their work, she notes that it is a “fluid, organic” process.  

The hours for the gallery are weekdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and weekends 12 p.m. until 4 p.m. The show will run until Feb. 18.