paper 6 revison of Art Gallery by Tim Howard

The Synarts Gallery
By: Tim Howard
The new art gallery, called Synarts Cotillion, at Scott Hall has many different artist’s amazing art work mad be some of the fine students of the University of Alabama. Some of this great art goes from still pictures, to paintings, and even to a bale of paper shreds. The two main pieces of art that stick out the most in this exhibit are the still picture of the world war two veteran and the guitar. These two different forms of art will give you just a hint of the experience you will get to have coming to this amazing art gallery.
The first piece of art that you get to see when you first walk into the gallery is the still framed picture of the world war two veteran. His hat indicates that he is a World war two veteran. All you see is his upper body, and all you think is “ok this guy fought in world war two, next piece of art.” Then as you keep on going into the art gallery, all you do is think more and more about the still framed picture of the world war two veteran.
You look at other pictures such as the four pictures of the horse and the bail of paper shreds, but all you can think about it is the still framed picture of the World War two veteran. You then decide to walk back and look at it one more time. This time you notice something that you did not notice the first time. You look at his face and notice that the world war two veteran is not smiling. The picture takes you back to your memory of the “Mona Lisa” by Leonardo DaVinci. The still framed picture reminds you of the Mona Lisa because everyone wants to know about her mystic smile. So you look at this war veteran man who is not smiling and you ask yourself “What is he thinking about?” You start to stare into his eyes and you start to visualize him thinking back to the war as he going on to the shores of Normandy, fighting for the freedom that we all get to have. The war veteran lives for his friends for his who have fallen in battle. It amazes you how such an ordinary picture has so much of an amazing meaning behind it.
After you have gotten something great from something as plain a black and white, ordinary still framed picture of world war two veteran, you can’t wait to see what is next to come. As you keep moving through the art gallery, you then notice a smaller version of a guitar. It does not look like any guitar that you have seen before. All other guitars that you have seen always have a long straight neck, but the tuning of this guitars strings is turned back toward the wall as you observe. The first reaction you have is that “I want to play this guitar.” The reason being is because it is just so different from any other guitar. You also notice that there are only 4 frets. You wonder what type of pitch or sound this little guitar could bring.
You look to the side and find a description saying that the artist, Anden Oben, based this piece of art off of a thirteenth century piece guitar made by Hans Frei of Turkey. As you keep looking at it you notice the center of the guitar, from the many small distinct holes, looks like a Catholic Church window. Also, you look toward the back of the guitar and the way that it is shaped reminds you of an onion as it is shaped like he roundness of a bulb. At first glance it just looks like wood flooring. This is because each piece of would is put side by side the way you would see on flooring and it somehow takes a round shape on the base of the guitar.
Once you have left this glorious art display you think about how the two artist took there approach on there art. With the still framed picture of the world war two veteran, it seemed that there was not much real effort put into i the art. Although because we knew through his hat that he was a world war two veteran we can relate to what he could have exactly been through. His experience would been different to a veteran who fought during the Korean war. Also getting to talk to one of the other artist in, Laura Shill, she explained that the artist took some pictures of these world war two veterans and it was just one the person liked. This does somewhat bring the art down because there was no special meaning behind her art, but people make art come to life for themselves, not artist. That is because people connect what they feel a piece of art means.
The second piece of art, the extravagant guitar seemed like that without a doubt had many hours put into to it and all of its art was very visual and easy to see were the artist was going with his piece. Talking to Scott Jarrett, another Synart artist, told me about this piece done by Anden Oben, I found out that he makes instruments for a living and also teaches in the music department. Unlike the still framed picture, Mr. Oben did build this piece of art and wanted it to look different from regular guitars basing off this older version of guitar. The way Mr. Oben did this is through the neck, the center piece that looks like a Catholic Church window, and the base of the guitar.
The Synarts art gallery is an amazing exhibit to go and see. It gives you a feel of some of the different artist around the University of Alabama. The still framed picture of the world war two veteran and the guitar is just giving you a taste of some of the many amazing art in this exhibit. There are also other amazing art from abstract pictures to a bale of paper shreds. The exhibit is one o the many great new exhibits here in the capstone. Come and enjoy something new in visiting the Synarts gallery.