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12.05.08

For immediate Release: December 3, 2008

Contact: Sally Corbett, Director, Marketing & Communications, Emory College Center for Creativity & Arts, 404-727-6678, sacorbe@emory.edu

ENGAGING ART ON VIEW IN NEW EMORY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE BUILDING

The Emory University motto, “the wise heart seeks knowledge” (Proverbs 18:15), reflects the University mission to educate heart and mind, but now Emory’s School of Medicine (SOM) will be educating the heart, the mind and the eyes. “Art by the Emory Visual Arts Faculty,” the first in a series of compelling art installations developed to reach future doctors and the professionals who train them is on view Dec. 1, 2008 through Feb. 28, 2009 in the new SOM Building (1 st and 2 nd Floor lobbies). The SOM and the Emory College of Arts & Sciences Visual Arts Department with co-sponsorship from the Emory University Creativity & Arts Initiative have collaborated to extend the clinical and classroom experience into the lobby-turned-gallery space. The current show will be augmented by artist- and curator-led lunchtime talks in the coming semester. Plans for next year include the use of art to hone students’ observational skills.

“Our new SOM Building, which opened last year, is a space conducive to learning about the entire human – body, mind and spirit,” says Dr. William Eley, Executive Associate Dean for Medical Education & Student Affairs, SOM, and member of the Executive Committee of the Emory University Creativity & Arts Initiative. “The art in our first exhibition is a perfect partner to the study of medicine as it invites us to study the ‘body,’ the framework, structure and composition of the artist’s work, and ask what was in the ‘mind’ of the creator and how do we interpret it?”

This new program began to be developed over the last year during discussions among Dr. Eley; Dr. David M. Schuster, Director, Division of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging and

Clinical Director of the Emory Center for Positron Emission Tomography, and Assistant Professor of Radiology, SOM; Dr. Rosemary Magee, University Vice-President and Secretary and Director, University Creativity & Arts Initiative; Dean Robert Paul, Emory College of Arts and Sciences; and Linda Armstrong, Chair, Visual Arts Department, Emory College of Arts and Sciences.

Enlisted by Eley to bring the exhibition, lunchtime talks and an accompanying catalog brochure to life is highly-respected independent curator and contemporary art consultant Julia A. Fenton, who has managed galleries, artists and exhibitions for more than 30 years in Atlanta and in the Pacific Northwest, and curatorial assistant Angus Galloway who holds a BA from Emory College of Arts and Sciences and an MFA from Georgia State University.

The exhibition, which focuses on the human experience and body, features 45 paintings, drawings, mixed-media works, prints and photographs (including one work featuring 80 photographs) by Visual Arts Department Faculty members Lisa Alembik, Linda Armstrong, William A. Brown, Ruth Dusseault, Sarah Emerson, Jason Francisco, Angus Galloway, Diane Solomon Kempler, Julia Kjelgaard, Katherine Mitchell and Kerry Moore. The next exhibition in the series will open in Spring 2009 and will feature the art of medical students, faculty and staff.  

The public may view the exhibition during SOM Building public hours, 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Friday. For information on parking, directions and visiting the exhibition, the public may call 404-712-9979.

This installation is the first in an ongoing series of art exhibitions in the SOM Building and is part of a wave of new and innovative initiatives at Emory to make the arts a part of daily life in the community. Of the new exhibition series, Rosemary Magee notes that, “Emory hopes that engaging our community – and in this case medical students and health professionals - in the arts and creative processes will enhance all of our abilities to be creative thinkers. This program, along with the work of the Public Art Committee to place more outdoor art on campus and the efforts of other schools such as the Goizueta Business School’s Balser Art Collection, are major steps in the plan to integrate the arts into our everyday experience on campus.” For more information about the Emory University Creativity & Arts Initiative and its programs, the web site is www.creativity.emory.edu.

Art programs have developed within the medical schools of some other major research universities, including Harvard Medical School’s nine-week course in partnership with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Yale School of Medicine’s partnership with the Yale Center for British Art; a new “mini-elective” course offered by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine with the Carnegie Museum of Art and Andy Warhol Museum; and the Frick Collection program with the Weill Medical College of Cornell University.

As the Emory SOM weaves art into the curriculum it may be the only medical school currently bringing contemporary art directly into the school setting for this purpose. “As we begin to weave the art discussion groups into our new curriculum in the next few years, we hope to heighten observational skills used in physical examinations, deepen empathy for patients, enhance understanding of the human condition and teach our doctors to look at problems from more than one perspective. Upcoming lunchtime talks with the curator, artists and students are the early stages in developing a more comprehensive curriculum aimed at enhancing students’ visual and diagnostic skills such as inspecting, describing and interpreting,” says Dr. Eley.

Medical schools that have incorporated visual art programs into their curriculum have proven the value of such educational approaches through research. A study by Joel Katz and Shahram Khoshbin from the Departments of Medicine and Neurology at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital is published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine (July, 2008), and an earlier study by Yale Medical School’s Irwin Braverman, M.D., professor of dermatology, former student Jacqueline Dolev, M.D., and Linda Friedlander, curator of education, Yale Center for British Art is detailed in Journal of the American Medical Association (Sept. 5, 2001). Katz and Khoshbin found that students receiving the training were likely to make more observations than those in the control group, and showed stronger visual acumen through greater accuracy, complexity and sophistication in what they observed. Braverman, Dolev and Friedlander found that students who received the training improved their detection of details by 10 percent, while control groups showed no improvement in detection of details.

Emory has experienced a steady increase in the number of facilities featuring permanent or temporary exhibitions in recent years. In addition to the new SOM exhibition, Emory currently offers exhibitions in the Michael C. Carlos Museum (permanent collection and temporary exhibitions), the Visual Arts Gallery (contemporary art exhibitions by Emory artists and guests); Schatten Gallery (temporary touring and Library-organized exhibitions) and Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library (exhibitions from Emory’s special collections) of the Woodruff Library; the Goizueta Business School Balser Art Collection (permanent collection of modern art); Emory Law School Library (temporary contemporary art exhibitions); the Schwartz Center’s Chace Upper Lobby (faculty and staff contemporary art) and North Hallway (student and alumni art); Oxford College Art Gallery (guest and Oxford student and faculty art); Cox Hall Computing Lab (student art) and Dobbs University Center (student art).

Biographical information for each artist and the curators from the School of Medicine inaugural exhibition follows.

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Lisa Alembik, drawing and painting
MFA, Georgia State University
Alembik is an artist, educator and curator. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia (MOCA GA), the Huntsville Museum, Alabama and Eyedrum Art and Music Gallery, Atlanta. She is the director of the Dalton Gallery at Agnes Scott College. Her work as a curator and artist tends to focus on cultural ideas of landscape, home and identity that are influenced by the migrations of modern history. Alembik has taught at Agnes Scott and North Georgia College. She previously served on the Artists Resource Council of MOCA GA and the board of Eyedrum.

Linda Armstrong, sculpture; Chair, Visual Arts Department
BFA, Atlanta College of Art; MFA, Georgia State University, Yale at Norfolk
Armstrong is a sculptor who works in a wide variety of media. She is the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, including the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts & Sciences and the Georgia Council for the Arts. She was the recipient of a grant from the Southern Arts Federation/National Endowment for the Arts in 1992. She has had one-artist exhibitions at the Institute of Ecology at the University of Georgia, the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art and the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center. She has been included in numerous group exhibitions, including Transitions at MOCA GA, 2002.

William A. Brown, film, video and photography
BA, Emory College of Arts and Sciences; MFA, University of Florida
Brown has been producing experimental and arts related documentary films since 1976. He was one of the original founders of Atlanta’s IMAGE Film and Video Center and Nexus Contemporary Arts Center (now the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center). He helped initiate the Visual Arts Program at Emory. His documentary, “Apocalypse Then,” aired nationally on the A&E Network in 1987 and won a regional Emmy. Brown has shown at major film festivals, including the Tokyo Video Festival, the United States Film Festival, The World Wide Video Festival (The Hague) and the Oberhausen Film Festival. He writes articles on emerging media technologies and is president of Atlanta Video, Inc.

Ruth Dusseault, photography
MFA, Florida State University
Dusseault is Artist-in-Residence at Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Architecture, where she recently received the Outstanding Education and Practice Award. She works in a variety of photographic formats and her photographs are exhibited and collected internationally. She has received over a dozen artist grants and awards from various organizations, including the National Endowment for the Arts and the Forward Arts Foundation. Her long-term project documenting the transformation of Atlantic Station in Atlanta, GA, was exhibited at the High Museum of Art in 2006. Her new work, which examines utopian interpretations of nature and war, will be exhibited in 2009. She has also served as guest curator for exhibitions merging art and architecture for the DC Arts Center, the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and the Carnegie Museum of Art.

Sarah Emerson, drawing and painting
BA, Atlanta College of Art; MA, Goldsmiths College, London, England
Over the last 10 years Emerson has exhibited her paintings in galleries throughout the United States and Europe, including White Columns, New York; Cosmic Gallery, Paris; and Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT. Her work has recently been in shows in the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, the Dalton Gallery at Agnes Scott and Mason Murer Fine Art.

Jason Francisco, photography; incoming Chair, Visual Arts Department
BA, philosophy, Columbia University; MA, South Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison; MFA, photography, Stanford University
Francisco is an acclaimed photographer, writer and book artist. His most recent book, “Far From Zion: Jews, Diaspora, Memory,” was published in 2006 by Stanford University Press. He came to Emory in the fall of 2008 from the Visual Arts Department at Rutgers University, where he was an associate professor. Since 2003 he has also been a visiting professor during the summer quarter at Stanford University.

Angus Galloway, drawing and painting, exhibition curatorial assistant
BA, philosophy, Emory College of Arts and Sciences; MFA, Georgia State University
Galloway has presented solo exhibitions and has participated in group shows at Emory; Georgia State University; The Cage Gallery, Atlanta, GA; Young Harris College Art Gallery, Blairsville, GA; Here Theater, New York, NY; Lake Claire Park, Atlanta, GA; Pierogi Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Mason Murer Fine Art, Atlanta, GA; Leif Magne, Leipzig, Germany; 207 Gallery, New York, NY; Limer Gallery, Phoenicia, NY; Tribes Gallery, New York, NY; The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, GA; and City Art Gallery, Columbia, SC.

Diane Solomon Kempler, ceramics
BA, philosophy, Brandeis University
Kempler has studied with numerous ceramic artists and has received grants, awards and residencies. She has been active as an artist and teacher for more than 20 years. She has had several one-woman exhibitions, including shows in Georgia, New York, Charlotte and Richmond. She participates in national exhibitions, including the touring exhibition “Body and Soul: Contemporary Southern Figures,” curated by the Columbus Museum. As a project of the Corporation for Olympic Development in Atlanta (CODA), she created and installed a permanent bronze fountain sculpture in downtown Atlanta in 1996. Her work deals with transformations and transitions as they exist in nature and human beings.

Julia Kjelgaard, drawing and painting
BA, University of California-Santa Barbara; MFA, University of Michigan
Kjelgaard’s prints and paintings have been included in numerous national and international exhibitions including presentations in England, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Poland, Taiwan and Yugoslavia, as well as in numerous catalogues and anthologies. Her grants and fellowships include an Individual Artist Grant from the Alabama Council for the Arts (2002), a Hambidge Fellowship (1998) and a Kala Fellowship (1993). Her work is included in collections at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, the Huntsville Museum of Art, the Butler Museum of Art, the Kala Institute, the Moscow Studio and the University of Wyoming Art Museum, as well as corporate and private collections. In 2007, she had a solo exhibition, “The India Dream Works,” at the Emory Visual Arts Gallery, and that series was also included as part of a joint exhibition at Pyramid Atlantic, MD. Most recently she had solo exhibitions of Indo Indicia at Auburn University’s Biggin Gallery and the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Much of her current work resulted from research in India as a Fulbright Scholar in 2007.

Katherine Mitchell, drawing and painting
BFA, Atlanta College of Art; MVA, Georgia State University
Mitchell has exhibited nationally and internationally, including The American Academy of Arts and Letters, NY and the National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington, D. C., and has works in numerous private and public collections, including MOCA GA and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA; J. B. Speed Museum, Louisville, KY and the Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR. She has received numerous awards and grants, including a National Endowment for the Arts/Southern Arts Federation grant in painting in 1992. In 2000, she completed a five-year project of 15,000 sq. ft. of ceramic tile murals for a Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority station in Atlanta.

Kerry Moore, drawing, painting and sculpture
BFA, sculpture, College of the Dayton Art Institute, OH; MFA, sculpture, University of Arizona-Tucson
Moore’s Georgia exhibitions include Atlanta showings at Eyedrum, the Emory Visual Arts Gallery, MOCA GA, The Emory Chairs Project, King Plow Sculpture Show (Invitational), and Spruill Center, as well as a show in Savannah, GA at the Savannah College of Art and Design. His other exhibitions include shows at the Orlando Museum of Art, FL and the Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC. He has completed commissions for the City of Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson International Airport, Delta Air Lines and the University of Arizona Committee on Dance in Tucson. His grants and awards include a Fulton County Individual Artist Grant in Atlanta, GA and a Georgia Council for the Arts Individual Artist Grant.  

Curator Biography

Julia A. Fenton
BA, Millsaps College, Jackson, MS
Fenton has curated exhibitions in Oregon and Atlanta. Fenton’s own art, which is feminist based, has been reviewed nationally in Art in America, Art Papers, Sculpture and Artweek. Her art has been featured in solo exhibitions in GA, MS, CA, OR and CO, and she has participated in invitational group exhibitions throughout the United States. She is the founding editor of the publication now known as “Art Papers” magazine, and has served on their board since 2006. Her Atlanta-area positions have included E xhibitions Director, Spruill Center for Arts; Gallery Director and Curator, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center; Director of Galleries (City Gallery at Chastain and City Hall East Gallery), The City of Atlanta Department of Cultural Affairs. She is the formerDirector of the Newport Visual Arts Center, Oregon. In addition, Fenton’s expertise includes grant writing, teaching, consulting, research and publishing. She has many awards, honors and community service activities to her credit, including Outstanding Woman in the Visual Arts, State of Georgia, Georgia Society of Historic Preservation (2006); Outstanding Woman in the Visual Arts, Atlanta Women in Film (1982); and City Council, Toledo, Oregon (2003-2005).

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