Spring Break
URI professor recreates marine artwork
Betsy Cohen
Issue date: 11/7/08 Section: News
11/07/08 - For some people, art is a means to escape reality; for artist and educator David Wheeler, it is a portal to the past.
Wheeler, a marine science illustrator with 25 years of artistic experience, aims to recreate prehistoric artwork that depicts marine life. The exhibit, which began Sunday will run until the end of this month. Eleven of his works will be on display in the gallery at the University of Rhode Island's library.
An autobiographical excerpt placed near his mounted artwork said Wheeler aims to "experience the primordial impulse, to feel in my own hands the act of early mark making."
His exhibit, entitled "Primordial Tides: Sea Life in the Art of Prehistoric Peoples," includes works created with watercolor pencils, crayons, watercolors, oil pastels and colored inks. His drawings were designed with technical pens on illustration boards.
"It's pretty good, I wish I could do art like that actually," said Nicole Sutherlin, a freshman majoring in business and marketing. The artwork "gets you away from the feeling of being in a library, so you don't have to feel like it's all about work," she said.
The first of his 11 works is a black and white drawing composed of brisk pen strokes, the occasional cluster of dots and series of miniature diamonds. In the drawing, six men diligently work aboard a wooden-planked ship, sorting their daily catches. The individual figures are drawn in precise positions, each with his head bent downwards towards the deck.
In front of them lie various containers filled with organisms ranging from crabs, fish, and shells of various shapes and sizes. The drawing is titled, "The New York Zoological Society's First Oceanographic Expedition, After Ernest Schoedsack."
In the foreground of the second drawing, the portrait of a man stares out at the onlooker. His portrait appears to date him somewhere around his mid-fifties with a receding hairline and wrinkles that crease his forehead. He wears a plaid shirt, slightly unbuttoned just below his neck, and noticeable bags shadow his eyes.
Wheeler, a marine science illustrator with 25 years of artistic experience, aims to recreate prehistoric artwork that depicts marine life. The exhibit, which began Sunday will run until the end of this month. Eleven of his works will be on display in the gallery at the University of Rhode Island's library.
An autobiographical excerpt placed near his mounted artwork said Wheeler aims to "experience the primordial impulse, to feel in my own hands the act of early mark making."
His exhibit, entitled "Primordial Tides: Sea Life in the Art of Prehistoric Peoples," includes works created with watercolor pencils, crayons, watercolors, oil pastels and colored inks. His drawings were designed with technical pens on illustration boards.
"It's pretty good, I wish I could do art like that actually," said Nicole Sutherlin, a freshman majoring in business and marketing. The artwork "gets you away from the feeling of being in a library, so you don't have to feel like it's all about work," she said.
The first of his 11 works is a black and white drawing composed of brisk pen strokes, the occasional cluster of dots and series of miniature diamonds. In the drawing, six men diligently work aboard a wooden-planked ship, sorting their daily catches. The individual figures are drawn in precise positions, each with his head bent downwards towards the deck.
In front of them lie various containers filled with organisms ranging from crabs, fish, and shells of various shapes and sizes. The drawing is titled, "The New York Zoological Society's First Oceanographic Expedition, After Ernest Schoedsack."
In the foreground of the second drawing, the portrait of a man stares out at the onlooker. His portrait appears to date him somewhere around his mid-fifties with a receding hairline and wrinkles that crease his forehead. He wears a plaid shirt, slightly unbuttoned just below his neck, and noticeable bags shadow his eyes.
