The opening reception for an art gallery by local artist and educator Blanche Şerban was held in the University of Connecticut’s Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday, Oct. 17. The gallery, exhibiting 366 unique pieces painted by Şerban, according to the Jorgensen’s website, will be available for public viewing until Dec. 14.
Şerban has held exhibitions as far back as 2003 in Willimantic, according to her website. Hailing from Bucharest, Romania, the artist originally pursued a career in psychotherapy, believing the former communist ways of the country would render a career in art to be infeasible. At the turn of the century, she became able to chase her passion for art as an occupation and now hundreds of her works are proudly displayed in UConn’s Jorgensen Center.
“A Year of Plein Air Painting on Horsebarn Hill,” the name of the exhibition, is no exaggeration. Plein air, an art movement that emphasizes the outdoors, and specifically the outside air, gives the vast amount of 366 paintings a consistent theme. Through e-mail correspondence, I was able to ask Şerban some questions, where she first gave some context about plein air and how it “comes with the trill and the challenge of depicting a changing subject in a continuously shifting light. It requires making quick decisions to simplify and select the essential elements that translate the experiential subject into a pictorial interpretation.”
The genesis of this challenging idea to create a painting every day for one year was a simple thought of hers in 2019. Reading her blog shows how she was so immersed in the local environment that the daunting task of starting and finishing a painting every day felt natural to her and wasn’t logistically overwhelming as it would be for most people.
Living in Storrs, Connecticut, she is already familiar with the area and captures natural beauty with ease in her works, even in creations that aren’t so natural. The crowning achievement of Şerban’s exhibition is a wall of small square canvases, each filled with immense detail. These are all the more impressive when one considers that they were each painted in one day. Between depictions of farm animals, landscapes and people, the occasional car or tractor will be the center of attention.
A particular favorite of mine is a painting of the UConn Dairy Bar truck, where she handles the Husky mascot and the Dairy Bar’s logo with the same finesse as the sunset or a couple holding hands, both of which are other scenes she painted. These machines are as much a part of our lives and are ingrained in our culture as anything naturally occurring at this point in time, and it’s sometimes difficult to recognize this 21st-century reality.
I asked Şerban whether there’s any sort of commentary on nature versus machines in her works, to which she gave an anecdote of her observing the rise of the Harvest Moon on Horsebarn Hill. A photography club was there to document the occasion, except their cameras failed to capture “fragments of the moon peeking from behind veils of clouds” and “the full contour of the huge moon” in the same way her eyes could see it.
By not relying on her iPhone’s camera that only relayed darkness, it was the difference between seeing the moon instead of nothing, to which she added, “Our eyes are alive, and they continuously adjust to our experience.” Her point is that regardless of how sophisticated photography becomes, it will never rival our vision of the world. During talks, she juxtaposes an image of her painting of a place with a photo of the place, and “reliably every single time, the audience bursts into laughter, as the photo is a dark, small, poor representation of what is on the canvas.” Şerban claims, “You have this magic in yourself. Give it a try.”
Her grievances about the year of painting include the one to six hours of her time for each piece, along with the days when the weather seemingly didn’t want her to paint, yet she made the best of it. She recalled one day when she was painting inside her car because of rain when a student walked in front of her and gave the landscape some life. Among the variety of small canvases are also larger pieces scattered around the Jorgensen’s walls, such as the lavender “Songs of Spring.” Şerban believes the larger canvas “gives a sense of expansive freedom and power to explore and experiment, while it can be psychologically and physically demanding.”
In a way, witnessing everyone talking at the opening was akin to a family gathering celebrating this monumental achievement. Şerban’s husband, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor in UConn’s Psychology department, Blair Johnson, was also at the reception. Bringing this event to the Life section’s attention, he hopes students will check the exhibition out, though purchasing the pieces may be above our pay grade. He humorously noted that, although the artworks are for sale, students weren’t the target demographic in terms of pricing. Regardless, the exhibition is free to visit.
Its hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Mondays through Wednesdays, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursdays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Fridays. Şerban encourages UConn students to “see the exhibition at Jorgensen, and then take a walk around Horsebarn Hill and see for themselves how art transformed their experience.”