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With nationally renowned alumni and award-winning faculty, UNT's School of Visual Arts has earned a reputation as one of the best in the nation. Each year, the faculty members who inspire and influence art students display their work in the UNT Art Gallery. The annual exhibition gives students a chance to see work from the professors' perspective, and it gives the public a chance to learn about and experience the work of local artists.

If you live too far from Denton to visit the UNT Art Gallery, in this issue we're bringing the art to you. Below you'll find works featured in the latest faculty exhibition, which was on display from November 2006 through February of this year. Check out the photo gallery for other pieces from the exhibition.

Vincent Falsetta
Professor, drawing and painting

CP 06-2
2006
Oil on canvas
60" x 60" x 2"
Courtesy of Conduit Gallery, Dallas, Texas

Though he paints on canvas, Falsetta evokes thoughts of technology with his abstract work. "Using an idiosyncratic means of applying paint, I call specific attention to the plasticity of the medium and to the painting as an object, as opposed to a flat image," he says in an artist's statement. "But, while the waves I produce are quietly literal, they also have an undeniable graphic presence that corresponds to printed recordings of sound waves, seismic waves and other forms of electronic readings."

Janie Stidham
Associate professor, fashion design

Pieces of My Past
2006
Panty hose, recycled black garments
Size 8

In Pieces of My Past, Stidham recycled an old lace jacket, skirts, blouses, left-over fabric and pantyhose to create a "vintage modern" black lace cocktail dress. "My interests have been in the recycling or re-purposing of items or fabrics that would normally go to waste," she says. "In our business, it's hard to do something unique these days because there is so much out there in the marketplace. I am always experimenting with ways to create unique designs through the use of unusual materials."

Amie Adelman
Associate professor, fibers

stratolite
2006
Mixed media
84" x 84"

Orange and red truck reflectors make up Adelman's 7-foot-square creation. She explores "weaving drafts, the design structures used in loom preparation," she says in an artist's statement. "I render the weaving draft's grid as a system for organizing multiples of commonplace objects in repeat patterns that include implied lines and shapes. Into the unyielding structure of the grid, I integrate humor by referencing textiles in unexpected ways."

Harlan W. Butt
Regents Professor, metalsmithing and jewelry

Earth Beneath Our Feet: Colorado Horizon #1
2006
Silver, enamel
4.5" x 5" x 5"
Collection of Tommy and Tammie Walker

Butt, who recently celebrated 30 years at UNT, reflects the beauty of nature in this piece. He says his work has evolved over the years while in many ways remaining the same. "After all, I am the same person," he says. "The Earth Beneath Our Feet series continues to focus on the landscape on which we stand, pointing to a place where we, as humans, are an integral part, not merely objective observers."

Richard Davis
Professor, sculpture

Courting Lucky
2006
Mixed media on bronze and stainless steel
72" x 63" x 11"

In Courting Lucky, tiny figures hold up precariously balanced wedges and stacked ledges. Davis' powerful bronze and stainless steel sculptures experiment with the perception of balance — and the idea that one change might cause everything to come tumbling down. "We court the aspect of luck," Davis says. "In life, there's a certain amount of luck, balance and probability in whether something is going to happen or not. I'm trying to emulate something of that in the piece in a joyful, curious, energetic way."

Dornith Doherty
Associate professor, photography

El Paso — Ciudad Juárez
2004
Chromogenic color photograph
38.6" x 50"
Courtesy of Holly Johnson Gallery, Dallas, Texas

Doherty explores the cultural landscape of the Rio Grande, where the United States and Mexico meet, in her photograph. "This photograph combines an image of the landscape between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez with collected roadside soil, asphalt and milagros. The portrayal of semi-trucks and urbanized landscape combined with the collected artifacts reference the incongruities between Mexican and U.S. laws regarding trade, heavy trucks, air pollution and immigration."

Sally Packard
Associate professor, fibers

harbinger
2006
Mixed media
21" x 24" x 36"

Packard says her animal sculptures are "both pitiful and funny. Where they have been and where they are going is unknown to them." In an artist's statement on the series, she says, "I am interested in the conflicted relationship between animals and human animals. We live with them, honor them, eat them, personify them, fear them and respect them, but we do not understand them."

Robert Milnes
SOVA dean and professor, ceramics

Milagro
1998-2004
Earthenware
25.5" x 20" x 20"

Milagro ("miracle" in Spanish) is one in a series of "big head" sculptures created by Milnes. Trips to Mexico and China helped inspire the series,which he started creating in 1997. "The sculpture combines references to Olmec sculptures and more contemporary religious charms," Milnes says. "Like most of my work, it is about what it means to believe you know something and act upon the belief."

Annette Lawrence
Associate professor, drawing and painting

Wall Drawing, 11-16-06
Graphite
144" x 116"

Lawrence's wall drawing came from an image of a string installation she created at the Glassell School in Houston in 2003. "The image is all that remains of the string installation," she says. "Making a wall drawing is a way of extending the life of the string installation, while making another ephemeral work. Drawing directly on the wall affords me the opportunity to make a monumental piece with minimal materials. The temporal nature of the drawing is a key part of the experience."