BY ISAAC HAN and JOHN OH

In print | Published November 4, 2010

While the works of students and famous artists alike grace the walls of the List Gallery and classrooms of Beardsley, we are rarely given the opportunity to see the artwork done by Swarthmore art professors. Professor of Studio Art Randall Exon’s work, though, is currently being exhibited at the Community Arts Center’s Duke Gallery in Wallingford, PA. Exon’s work in the “At Home” exhibit draws upon themes of familiarity and personal experience.

Running until Nov. 24, “At Home” showcases some of Exon’s landscape paintings from the past four years. The name “At Home” has a double meaning: it refers both to how the Arts Center is only a block away from his home, while his work is typically displayed at the Hirschl & Adler Modern Gallery in New York, and how much his work embodies the sense of nostalgia that he has for the landscapes that he paints.

Exon, who considers himself a landscape painter, focuses most of his landscapes on three places that have played a large part in his life: the Upper Midwest and Kansas, where he spent most of his childhood, Southeastern Pennsylvania, where he currently lives, and Northwest Ireland. Exon spent many summers and holidays at his family’s farms in South Dakota as a child. The landscapes of South Dakota and Nebraska were “very mysterious place[s]” for Exon. Exon also marvels at the landscapes near his home now, like the Delaware Bay or the Susquehanna River, as well as the Irish landscape, where Exon spent time as a Fellow at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Mayo, Ireland.
“The Irish landscape, [especially] that part of northwest Mayo, is just spectacular along the ocean,” Exon said. “It almost reminded me of the upper Midwest, although it had this big ocean. The terrain had some similarities.”

While Exon’s landscapes include some figures and he’s also painted portraits, he was drawn to landscapes because of their ability to transcend differences. “Most people have had the experience of going into the landscape and having that wonderful experience of just looking over and saying, ‘Oh, how beautiful that is,” Exon said. “I think the role of the painters in the past [was] conjuring up those moments and getting them down in paint.”

Exon described painting as a kind of “alchemy,” where it’s, at the basic level, dirt mixed with oil are placed on fabric. “It has no value beyond the imagination that’s demonstrated and, to some degree, the skill that’s demonstrated.”

Drawing from his past, Exon creates a canvas that draws upon the experiences of the people viewing his work, whether it’s their memories of a beautiful landscape or their childhood.

“The thing I like about his works is that they invite people in,” Debbie Yoder, the executive director of the Arts Center, said of Exon’s works. “There is something very welcoming about his work. Part of me thinks it has a great deal to do with how his imagination works; the colors are accessible and awe inspiring.”

Another element of his paintings that makes his work more accessible is the fact that Exon masterfully wields his craft to express the very sense of nostalgia he wishes to paint.
“Clearly grounded in issues of classical ideas of design, colors, texture, he masterfully manipulates air, light, and space in his artwork,” Profesor of Studio Art and Chair Syd Carpenter said. “His work is accessible and beautiful. It’s the subtle things he does in painting that can only be done by someone who practices.”

Exon is able to effectively translate the elements of a landscape to mold a painting that elicits a very profound personal response. Rose Cunniffe, a member of the Exhibition Committee at the Center, finds that his paintings, like “Hydrangea” and “Rule of Twelfths” show the “uncomplicated views which have been creatively edited by his imagination.” One of his oil paintings featured in the exhibit, entitled “Sheets and Garage,” is of a clothesline and an isolated white garage on a hilltop of a rural area. The scene achieves familiarity in spite of its specificity. The scene is only of one garage and clothesline but through its color scheme acknowledges the images reminiscent of universality.
“The exhibit is a coherent, evocative body of work in which each painting is absolutely noteworthy, and invites one to pause and contemplate,” Cunniffe said.

“At Home,” which features both Exon’s oil and watercolor paintings, will be on display at the Community Arts Center until Nov. 24. Exon will be at the Community Arts Center this Sunday, Nov. 7 to discuss the thematic elements of his paintings. There will also be a question and answer section of the event.

Camila Ryder also contributed to this article.

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