PLATTSBURGH — “Darkness & Light,” a two-part collaborative exhibition between the Strand Center for the Arts and SUNY Plattsburgh to celebrate the Great Solar Eclipse of 2024, is the perfect alignment to extend celestial memories.
The Darkness & Light exhibition will run through April 27 at both locations.
“All of the Darkness themed artworks are displayed here at the Strand, and then Light pieces are displayed at the Feinberg Library at SUNY Plattsburgh,” Megan Charland, artistic programming director, said.
“If you come and see the work, it’s really interesting because it’s kind of how artists interpret the word darkness, right, or the word light. Some of it is celestial themed, but some of it is also dark, disturbing images, too.”
DARKNESS
“Darkness” features 103 art works by more than 60 artists who answered the December 2023 call for submissions.
“We were really surprised,” Charland said.
“In the beginning, it didn’t seem there wasn’t a lot of interest in the exhibition I think because it was so open-ended in what the theme meant. I think some artists were intimidated by it in the very beginning, but then all of a sudden everybody wanted to participate. Then, we had all this artwork in the gallery. Oh boy, where are we going to put this?”
The show came together superbly and is an interesting blend of work.
“We had several artists that participated where this is their first show,” she said.
“They’ve never been in a formal gallery show before, so that was really cool. They came to the opening, and they were with their families and friends and were just really proud to have their work on the wall. So that was a really neat moment.”
The exhibition wasn’t curated. As long as artists followed the theme, their art was in the show.
“It’s definitely a very diverse collection of artworks in the gallery,” Charland said.
Opening reception was held April 5, and the gallery was packed.
“We had so many tourists in town for the eclipse,” she said.
“There was over 180 people were here on Friday, just Friday alone. We had people buying artwork that we will be shipping to Rhode Island. We had people from out of town buying work. It was really neat. It was kind of cool to see the support for art from outside the region, too. On Friday night, we also had a live performance of one of our contemporary dance classes.”
LIGHT
Kelly Theisen, an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, served on the Eclipse Committee at SUNY Plattsburgh and chaired the logistics subcommittee.
“We were talking about ideas and ways to get the community involved with us and vice-versa,” she said.
“We had the idea for a community art show. I went and talked to the Strand, and they’ve had the same idea. We started to partner on it and do it together and have half of the show at the Strand and half on campus with the idea being that that way folks would, hopefully, from campus would go downtown more and, hopefully, folks from downtown would come to campus more.”
Since Theisen initiated the collaboration, she was more than happy to spearhead the project.
“It was a good collaboration with the Strand,” she said.
“We had the reception on Saturday. A lot of the artists came. Everybody seemed really excited about the opportunity to show their work on campus. Some of the people submitted to both, so they were at both receptions or had artwork at both places. So far, it’s been a really great response from the artists and everybody who’s come to see the shows.”
Theisen organized, curated and installed the art on campus.
“We did have a lot of kids who submitted,” she said.
“That was really great. One of the artists, she was about maybe 10. There was another little one who was maybe younger than that.”