Reception Tuesday morning for new art exhibit

A reception has been announced to Historic City News for the opening of “The Black & White Show” to be held tomorrow morning, November 15, from 8:15 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., at the Rotunda Gallery of the St. Johns County Administration Palace located at 500 San Sebastian View in St. Augustine.

Artists Laura Mongiovi and Leslie Robison will exhibit a collection of their original pieces in the Rotunda Gallery through February 16, 2012.

The event, just before the meeting of the Board of County Commissioners is open to the public and all are invited to enjoy refreshments while viewing the show and meeting the artists.

Both Robison and Mongiovi are professors of art at Flagler College and were used to collaborating in the classroom, when the idea of combining their individual studio work occurred to them.

While Mongiovi’s material and process related abstractions seemed to have little in common with Robison’s representational imagery of people, the two saw a common thread in their contemplation of human experience.

Mongiovi’s studio practice derives from her interest in the symbolism of materials, objects, and processes. Associating textiles with the body, she explores ideas of sensual experience. On the other hand, Robison’s work explores an interest in our cultural memories embodied in found photographs of unknown individuals.

Through a number of collaborations over the years, Mongiovi’s approach to materials has influenced Robison and the subjects of Robison’s work have inspired Mongiovi. In the Black and White show, the collaborators show one body of work that exhibits this mutual influence. The resulting body of work presents thoughtfully drawn images with carefully selected textures and materials reminiscent of a time and place. While the chosen materials can be considered black and white media, the lives and experiences of the bodies shown reveals a gradient of shades in between these two metaphorical extremes.

Leslie Robison teaches drawing, painting, foundations and senior portfolio courses. She graduated with a Master of Fine Art Degree in Painting and Drawing in 2001 from the University of Florida; where she was a Grinter Fellow. She taught art history and drawing at Washington State University before joining Flagler College.

Robison’s work has been shown extensively throughout Florida but has also appeared in Seattle, Washington, Atlanta, Georgia, and Toronto, Ontario, Canada. A believer in collaborative experiences, she has contributed to national drawing initiatives in Atlanta and New York while also pursuing collaborative and community-based experiences for her students in Saint Augustine. Robison continues to draw but explores a range of other practices from painting and assemblage to video and performance.

Laura Mongiovi is an Associate Professor of Art. She obtained her MFA from CU Boulder and a BFA from Florida State University. Before joining the faculty at Flagler College, Mongiovi taught drawing and design at the University of Wisconsin-Stout and drawing at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Mongiovi’s work has been shown locally as well as across the country.

The St. Johns County Administration Building is open to the public from 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Photo credits: © 2011 Historic City News staff photographer