Dark hulking sculptures fill the von Auersperg Art Gallery as the space’s current exhibit. According to the exhibition guide, the large, matte black figures, all built within the exhibit by Fafnir Adamites, are embedded with abstract beauty and guides the viewer through space on a path of personal navigation.
Ms. Adamites, a local artist from Turners Falls, holds an MFA from the Fiber and Material Studies Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as a BA in Photography and Women’s Studies from University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Mrs. Taylor, who first noticed the artist along with Ms. Hemphill at an exhibit at Stoneleigh-Burnham School, met with Ms. Adamites in person and heard about her work.
“She’s very generous, and I feel her work is very genuine,” Mrs. Taylor said. “It comes from a lot of research that she did personally, and a journey that she’s done through her life and the life of generations in her family before her.”
Mrs. Taylor was optimistic that the exhibit would have a powerful impact on both students and faculty.
“The purpose of the exhibitions at the von Auersperg Gallery is to expose students to different types of art and artist from diverse backgrounds,” she said. “Fafnir Adamites is a conceptual artist, she lives locally, and with her sculptures, she claims space for acknowledgment of inherited trauma. We hope that curiosity will bring students into the gallery and engage with the work aesthetically and intellectually.”
Ms. Hemphill’s main goal is to garner the interest of the school community. Both Ms. Hemphill and Mrs. Taylor hope that the artwork in the gallery makes students more intrigued by different forms of art and artistic expression.
“I want them to be curious about coming in, and to be interested in what the next show is. For each show, we want people to be intrigued, to ask questions, and to look at the materials,” Ms. Hemphill said.
Ms. Hemphill was initially drawn to Adamites’s work by the uniqueness of the sculptures and how they would look in the von Auersperg gallery space.
“It’s quite strikingly different from the previous shows we’ve had,” she stated.
Mrs. Taylor agreed: “We want our gallery to be a teaching gallery, and where there is a surprise sometimes, and there is something unexpected.”
Lily Louis ’18, a student involved in bringing the artist, noted the distinctiveness of this exhibit.
“It’s conceptual art rather than the creation of a story,” she explained. “With the exihibit, it’s the concept that everything she’s made has been created from objects that will eventually disintegrate. The whole concept is that she creates will eventually fade away as well.”
Overall, the exhibit’s main purpose is to reveal to people to a novel type of abstract artistic expression.
“We hope that art becomes a part of [the students’] lives,” Mrs. Taylor said. “We want to give them exposure to a different way of working and thinking. It happens in the classrooms, but this is a space where it can happen in a different form.”