TAMUCC ART AND DESIGN

Rusteberg Gallery will be hosting a solo exhibition by Alexandria Canchola, TAMU-CC Assistant Professor of Art, Area of emphasis: Graphic Design. In this solo show titled Typecast, she will debut a newly completed series of work consisting of gouache paintings, hand lettering, 3D printing, and installations connecting narrative and emotion. The show will feature a selection of works devoted to the odd joy of voyeurism. Studying the roles we cast on others so that they are of a “type of person” a “type of character”. 

Rusteberg Gallery, Brownsville, Texas
Exhibition Dates: October 1 – 25, 2019
Opening reception: Friday, October 4, from 6-8 p.m.

The artwork created by Alexandria Canchola was made as part of her continuing quest to document the everyday. The work seen in Typecast, is inspired by and draws from narrative, blurring the distinctions between our perceptions of reality and our creations within it. She believes there is a strange satisfaction one experiences in their voyeuristic tendencies; watching others and forming stories about people that one never truly knows. “A person will never have all the facts. Because the facts are still a form of fiction. The facts can still steer us wrong because they are seen through our own cloudy, foggy, scratched, colored lens.”

She has investigated narrative through the combination of word and image, studying their relationship as they simultaneously merge together and break apart. This work showcases the significance that typographical forms possess using letters as formal design elements as well as basic symbols of communication. In contrast to the illustration work, which is based in narrative; a personal form of storytelling that helps us to make sense of the everyday, of the societal patterns we see and the relationships we experience.Thecolor palettes used subvert the viewer’s idea of emotion; centering on themes such as loneliness, solitude, and voyeurismand showcasing these emotions in the bright powerful hues in which we feel them.

Alexandria Canchola is a designer and illustrator, currently based in Corpus Christi, Texas, who loves drawing and painting as much as dragging and dropping. Her career in the arts was not quite a straight-line path, but instead included detours in the fields of journalism and filmmaking. She has a bachelor’s degree in Government and Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and an MFA in 2D Design from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. In 2018, she completed residencies at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California and Zea Mays Printmaking in Florence, Massachusetts. She is now an Assistant Professor for the Graphic Design program at Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi eagerly working to assist her students in their quest for knowledge so that they may feel inspired not only through the attainment of skills and methods of design but in becoming critical thinkers.

For more information about the exhibition, you can reach Alexandria Canchola by email at alexandriacanchola@gmail.com.

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Nancy Miller, Assistant Professor of Art and Coordinator of the Graphic Design program, was one of Two Islander Faculty Make CC Under 40 List.

CCU40 “honored 26 outstanding Coastal Bend professionals under the age of 40, highlighting their contributions to the community. For the first time in the program’s history, this group was composed almost entirely of millennials, ranging in age from 23 to 38.”

“Nancy Miller, Assistant Professor of Art and Coordinator of the Graphic Design program, received her bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design from Texas Christian University and her MFA in Media Design from Full Sail University. Miller built her repertoire designing for brands like Nike and creating solutions for a multitude of clients as a Creative Director at a local advertising agency before joining the Island University Department of Art & Design. At A&M-Corpus Christi, she uses her 15 years of real-world experience to enrich the minds of the students. To Miller, the link between education and community work is clear.”

“Involvement in the community informs my perspective as an educator,”  said Miller. “It helps me understand the issues that affect my students and allows me to develop meaningful service-learning opportunities for them that dually serve our community.”