baer gallery

Rafael Francisco Salas – Summer’s End

| Catherine Nelson

As fall semester begins, take a moment to reflect on Summer’s End, an exhibition of achingly beautiful work by Rafael Francisco Salas. The exhibition primarily features oil paintings of indistinct rural landscapes and a county fair in “a metaphorical change of season. It is an oblique atmospheric meditation on political and social divides. The landscape emerges as an emotional rather than a literal one. The county fair at summer’s end is a place of reckoning, full of innocence, and innocence lost.” 

From left to right: County Fair #3 (Calf), County Fair #1 (Princess), County Fair #2 (Shovel), 2021. Oil on canvas.

Salas’ paintings feature luminous backgrounds, their inner glow contrasting with a persistent shadow that creeps in at the corners of the canvases. He doesn’t shy away from saturated, earthy colors, but, paired with muted grays, the overall effect is a sense of disillusioned nostalgia.

2021 Landscape, 2021. Oil on canvas.

Summer’s End layers the hopefulness of the ideal, the clarity of recollection, and the crumbling of memory. Sharply rendered figures and sparkling fireworks are placed atop hazy rural landscapes, bleeding into but distant from their surroundings. Focal points dissociate into abstract strokes of jeweled color, and backgrounds fade into the feeling of a landscape, rather than a physical location.

In addition to large oil paintings, Summer’s End includes a collection of process sketches. This body of delicate, thoughtful works contextualize the ideas that culminated in each painting. It’s interesting to see how a change in medium affects the perception of each subject, with small studies in ink, acrylic, and collaged paper a quietly different treatment than the large oil paintings.

Process work.

Salas is a professor of art at Ripon College, where he also serves as chair of the department of Art and Art History, and has also been appointed to the Wisconsin Arts Board. His work has been displayed in New York City, San Diego, and Boston. He’s also shown work extensively in the Midwest, including in the Neville Public Museum, the Museum of Wisconsin Art, the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, and the Frank Juarez Gallery. His work is represented by Portrait Society Gallery in Milwaukee. Salas has also worked as an arts writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Newcity Art Chicago, The Isthmus Magazine and Urban Milwaukee.

Rockets #1 and Rockets #2, 2022. Oil on canvas.

Summer’s End opened on August 29 and can be viewed in the Baer Gallery through September 22. A reception will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, September 8. The gallery is open to the campus and the community.

County Fair #3 (Calf), 2022. Oil on canvas.

Blake Williams — Commonplace

| Catherine Nelson

Blake William’s Commonplace is anything but ordinary. The show, which was housed in the Baer Gallery at the start of the spring semester, includes ceramic and wire sculptures, as well as furniture sourced from Williams’ family, like her great-mother’s dining room table. These sculptures explore the human condition, how an individual relates to their surroundings, and how identity is formed and reformed.

Gammy’s Runner, Great-Mother’s Table, 2009-2010. Porcelain, wire, and table. In the back, Secret Recipes, 2019. Porcelain, wire, digital decals, and chair.

Through imagery of bones and flowers, Williams studies the ghosts of the past in the everyday, the transience of life, and the search for identity. Her work places a special significance on the contributions of domestic work and honors the memories bound up in objects of ancestors.

Gammy’s Runner, Great-Mother’s Table, as well as Resilience II, with Waiting for Summer in March on the far left.

Blake Williams is an artist and Associate Professor at Michigan State University. Her work has been exhibited internationally, and she has pieces in national private collections, as well as the Jingdezhen Ceramics Museum. Williams has also been featured in American Craft and Ceramics Monthly magazines.

Nourish 2010. Porcelain, wire, and chair.

This peaceful, contemplative exhibition was on display between January 24 and February 17 in the Baer Gallery. It was a quiet space to consider home and self, and to honor the sacredness of memory.