The Student Union has a “Dirty Little Secret,” and it is on public display through Thursday, Sept. 20, in its art gallery.
The exhibit features works by artist Janice Mueller. A free, public reception with the artist will be from 5 to 7 p.m., Wednesday, Aug. 29, in the Student Union Art Gallery.
“Dirty Little Secrets” includes large, oversized paintings that are rich with color and heavily textured. According to Mueller, they speak to her fascination with historical symbolism and “dead cultures.” Like a visual archeologist, she scratches and scrapes through layers of color to expose what lies beneath.
“I make art about cultures of the past hoping my questions will teach me something about the present,” Meuller said. “Shamans of the Neolithic fascinate me. I imagine conversations about spiritual matters. It doesn’t get me far, but I have really amusing debates as I paint.”
Captivated by the possible meanings of spirals, grids and triangles that existed before the advent of organized civilization, the artist marvels at ancient engineering and scientific feats still evidenced today. “Every once in awhile I, too, need to take a look at my own century. But the problem is that those dead cultures keep calling me back. So, it is with that objective that I attack this project.”
Mueller studied art at the Staedel Abend Schule in Frankfurt am Main and the Wiesbadener Kunstschule in Wiesbaden, Germany. Upon returning to the United States, she completed her BFA at the University of Rhode Island. She worked in Corpus Christi, Texas, before moving to Charlotte in 1999.
Since then, she completed her MFA and taught for 12 years at Winthrop University. In 1999, she was a guest lecturer at UNC Charlotte. In 2004, she received the North Carolina Arts Fellowship for an artist’s residency at the Vermont Studio Center.