October 14, 2016
Art and Design faculty present interdisciplinary talks
CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Faculty from the School of Art and Design at Southern Illinois University Carbondale present interdisciplinary art talks on campus on Oct. 20.
Marie Bukowski, director of the school, is a guest of the Department of Mathematics, delivering a colloquium lecture on “Art and the Mathematical Instinct: The Relationship between Art and Math” at 3:30 p.m. in Van Lente Auditorium, Neckers Hall.
Bukowski says, in her artist statement, that mathematics inspires her work. In addition, she is a scholar of language as well as art. As an undergraduate, she double-majored in painting and 19th Century German literature at Carnegie Mellon University with minors in printmaking and linguistics and rhetoric. She earned a certificate in art history and the Polish language from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, and then a master of fine arts degree in paining and printmaking from the University of Pennsylvania. She is a proponent of community art and was part of the Carbondale Downtown Advisory Committee promoting public art and streetscapes.
Mont Allen, assistant professor of art history and classics in the School of Art and Design and the Department of Languages, Cultures and International Trade, delivers a talk on “Chains of Love: Women Trapped in Marriage on Roman Walls,” at 6 p.m. in the University Museum auditorium in Faner Hall as a guest of Sigma Tau Delta International English Honor Society at SIU.
Allen’s talk focuses on a set of three Roman mural paintings from the bedroom of a private house in Pompeii. The trio represents women who have been unhappy in their marriages: Medea, who was jilted; Phaedra, who fell helplessly in love with her stepson; and Helen, who left her husband for her lover and contributed to the beginning of the Trojan War. Allen talks about what this combination of murals, which the husband probably selected as was traditional among Roman house decorations, might say about women and happiness and marriage.