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In print | Published April 24, 2003

John Murphy ‘03 culminates his Swarthmore art career in a mixed media show emphasizing patterns and connections. Murphy says of his project’s origin, “I came to the current style in which I’m working through the desire to convey the consistency of structural elements found in both natural and man-made forms.” He examines these links through works in origami, photography and wall reliefs.

The collection connects structures, materials and Murphy’s differing artistic styles. His assembly of origami forms focus on the “patterns of lines found within the structures.” Other pieces identify similar repetitions through different media and subjects. One of his photography installments juxtaposes magnified onion skin cells with “strikingly similar” images of stone masonry around campus. For Murphy, “the familiarity and truthfulness of photography helps make the connections more easily recognized.”

Murphy unites new and old artistic methods as well. The exhibit combines his first ever experience using wall reliefs with his childhood hobby of origami. His experimentation with wall reliefs and his return to origami expand upon the unity of the underlying contrast between the unfamiliar and familiar.

In this week’s exhibition, Laura Damerville ‘03 presents a series of drawings and paintings. She focused mostly on drawing because of the medium’s ability to convey the interaction between the artist and the object in the moment. “I feel that drawing helps me to represent my interpretation of visual phenomena most honestly and with the greatest immediacy,” she says.

In her show “Fatsuit,” Suzanne Wu ‘03 explores the relationship between fat and fashion in the story of two suits and four pairs of pants. She said of the collection, "I’m trying to force these fatsuits — along with their connotations — out of the realm of costume and into the realm of fashion."

Fashion fascinates Wu in terms of both its aesthetic value and people’s conceptions of it. As an extension of her obsession, the fat suit offers a response to mainstream fashion’s conventionality and emphasis on utility. “My fatsuits are all about rejecting conformity through clothing, especially the conformity that forces clothing to be designed in such a way so as to complement culturally imposed body ideals,” Wu said. Rather than engulfing or disguising the body, her suits “celebrate the non-ideal, and, through the guise of art, transform it.”

During the process, Wu learned how to sew and how to deal with a reluctant audience. After frustrations with the resistance of potential wearers, she added fat pants to her collection of suits for a more ready-to-wear option. This matter of degree was one of the formative struggles in her process, which she explored in a variety of pieces. Pants offered Wu a gentler way to bring fatsuits to her audience and another forum for the interrogation of fashion.

Exhibit hours:

Friday 4 p.m. – 6 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday 1 p.m. – 4 p.m.

The List Gallery is located on the main floor of LPAC.

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