Near at Hand: A Second Look
Photo by Dan Loh.
Unique Trout exhibition continues through April 5
Every faculty member at Dickinson is both a dedicated educator and an expert in their field. These dual contributions are visible in Near at Hand, an exhibition that places faculty work center stage while also showcasing what students in their department have learned.
Co-curated by 11 senior art history majors, the exhibition showcases the work of four studio art faculty members: Todd Arsenault '99, Andy Bale, Anthony Cervino and Rachel Eng and in-depth, original research by the students, published in an exhibition catalogue.
Studio visits were a major component of the extensive research process, says Shannon Egan, director of the Trout Gallery, who led the seminar. The students also led public conversations with the artists to enrich visitors’ experiences.
“Over a few short months, I’ve seen the students become skilled, confident curators, researchers and writers who tackled the somewhat daunting concept for this exhibition—works by faculty paired with historical objects from the Trout Gallery’s 11,000-object permanent collection—with enthusiasm and dedication,” Egan says. “Their success as curators, now armed with a range of professional experiences, is the result of Dickinson’s commitment to an engaged, dynamic education.”
The Trout Gallery exhibition continues through April 5.
Arsenault: Multilayered Meditations
Todd Arsenault, Within Crystal Range, 2024, oil on canvas, 66 x 71 in.
Associate Professor of Studio Art Todd Arsenault ’99 focuses on painting, drawing, printmaking and digital media. He has exhibited his work in solo and group exhibitions in New York City venues such at the Massimo Audiello Gallery, David Richard Gallery, Lehman Maupin Gallery, and The Painting Center, as well as Vox Populi in Philadelphia, Silvermine Gallery in New Canaan, Conn., and Chazen Museum of Art in Madison. International exhibitions include Galería Fúcares in Madrid and Almagro, Spain, and the ARCO art fair in Madrid.
Student curators Phoebe French ’25, Katie Marthins ’25 and Ava Nienstadt ’25 explored connections between Arsenault's work and art by Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and Pierre Bonnard. French referenced Warhol’s interest in consumer culture and Arsenault’s pop cultural references. Marthins used Freudian concepts to explore representations of fragmented bodies in Arsenault’s paintings. Nienstadt articulated how Arsenault’s approach to representation and abstraction is rooted in resistance to pictorial conventions, comparing Arsenault’s style to the work of Pierre Bonnard and other late-19th- and early-20th-century French modernists.
Bale: Illuminating social issues
Andy Bale, Palina, Laotian Diaspora, Boise, ID, 2019, pigment print on archival paper, 10 x 8 in. (25.4 x 20.3 cm)
Andy Bale's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in group and solo exhibitions, and he has held residencies in global venues. His current collaborative project with photographer Jon Cox, Arrivals: What's Left Behind, What Lies Ahead, documents the stories of immigrants, refugees and displaced Indigenous people and has been exhibited across the U.S. and internationally. Their prior collaboration was shown throughout the U.S., including the Peruvian Embassy, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and the Field Museum.
Molly Cicco ’25 and Liam Walters ’25 considered the past and present stories shared through these powerful photographs. Referencing a portrait of a former refugee from Laos, Walters reflected on the subject’s separation from her father as a young child in flight from violence and how that experience parallels one endured by Chinese American artist Hung Liu. Cicco revealed how Bale and Cox elucidate profound challenges faced by displaced peoples in Idaho and the consequences of historical conquest and genocide.
Cervino: Travel and memory
Anthony Cervino, Gathered, 2021, decorative plates knapped into a variety of points, rough cut white oak, plywood, paint, linen, glass, 30 x 30 x 8 in.
Professor of Art Anthony Cervino has taught at Dickinson since 2006. Cervino’s sculptures have been shown regionally, nationally and internationally and have been included in exhibitions at the Susquehanna Museum of Art in Harrisburg, The Gallery at Flashpoint in Washington, D.C., the Institute of Contemporary Art at the Maine College of Art, The Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, The Arlington Arts Center, The Minneapolis College of Art & Design, The Petrovaradin Creative Education Center, Novi Sad, Serbia, The Knunstnarhusset Messen Art Center, Alvik, Norway, Shippensburg University, and Bucknell University, and the Spitsbergen Kunstnersenter, Longyearbyen, Norway, among other museums and galleries.
McKenna Hillman ’25, Sophy Nie ’25 and Cat Orzell ’25 discussed these themes from different viewpoints. Nie focused on fantasies and real-world consequences of adventure and exploration. Hillman articulated Cervino’s depiction of the fraught middle grounds between complex binaries, such as young and old, kitsch and high art and desirable and ugly. Orzell likewise studied Cervino’s interest in juxtaposition and also compared the professor’s work to a collection of Neolithic tool fragments.
Eng: Sustainability and the natural world
Rachel Eng, Gravel, 2024, digital print, Cumberland County, PA, 24 x 36 in.
Associate Professor of Studio Art Rachel Eng joined Dickinson in 2016. Working in installation, sculpture, photography, ceramics, and video, she has shown work in national and international solo and group exhibitions and has earned a fellowship through the Center for Emerging Visual Arts in Philadelphia as well as a Puffin Foundation grant. Her work is held in various private and public collections, including the Gyeonggi Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art and Peninsula College Ceramics Collection. Eng illuminates environmental issues, with emphasis on complex relationships between humans and the environment.
Student curators connected Eng's work with Indigenous perspectives and with 19th-century landscape paintings. Discussing Eng’s installation recover, Vivian Anderson ’25 noted that Eng’s interest in the connection between the built and natural environments can be traced to some of the earliest human interventions in the landscape. Lily Swain ’25 discussed the artist’s environmental concerns in Carlisle, focusing on sites in Cumberland County. Grace Toner ’25 examined the connections to activist artwork by Georgia O’Keeffe, describing Eng’s recent installation as a “complex, multisensory experience” combining, video, clay and sound.
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Published March 31, 2025