杏吧直播间

 

MURRAY, Ky. 鈥� The 杏吧直播间 State University Galleries and the Department of Art & Design are pleased to present 鈥淐omma: Infinity in a Box.鈥� The exhibition is on view in the Clara M. Eagle Gallery Jan. 15 through Feb. 12. 

鈥淐omma鈥� is the curatorial/artistic project of Judy Rushin-Knopf and Carolyn Henne. Similar to a book arts project but with objects, it consists of 4.5 volumes produced between 2015 and 2025.

From the Department of Art and Design:

鈥淭he original idea for 鈥楥omma鈥� came from the immersive experience of listening to records. The experience begins long before the actual listening, because first you have the excursion to the record store. You might go to pick up the latest release by your favorite band and while you鈥檙e there you鈥檙e also going to hunt for treasures; like an obscure recording by someone mentioned in another record鈥檚 liner notes. You bring it home and only after you have studied the cover front and back do you break the cellophane (unless you鈥檝e been scouring the used bins) and slip the shiny black vinyl from its sleeve. Handling it with extreme care, you place it onto your player and lower the needle.

At first, sitting on the floor against your bed or couch, you read the cover again, maybe the lyrics if they are provided, or the band and production notes. Sooner or later, you鈥檒l find yourself lying on your back, eyes closed, carried by the sounds.

It all starts with a 12-by-12 object - first square, then round - flat, and sometimes opening like a book. You become a collector, and pretty soon albums fill an entire wall; a wall that is etched in vinyl, each mark holding its meaning for a time when you are ready to receive.鈥�

Curated by artists Judy Rushin-Knopf and Carolyn Henne, this exhibition also includes the following artists: Eleanor Aldrich, Erin Belieu, Teresa Bramlette Reeves, Chalet Comellas, Kevin Curry, Andrew Epstein, Lorrie Fredette, Lilian Garcia-Roig, Kelly Lorraine Hendrickson, Carlos Kempff, Anne McInnis, Rob Rushin-Knopf, Anne Stagg and Barbara Weissberger.

Henne was born in Fort Knox, Kentucky. She earned her bachelor鈥檚 degree in fine arts and economics from the College of William and Mary in 1983. She worked as an agricultural economist until she left to study and work at Lacoste School of the Arts in France. Thereafter, she earned her Master of Fine Arts in sculpture and extended media from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1990. She worked as a custom prop fabricator for film and television, taught adjunct for VCUarts in Richmond, Peru and Scotland while showing her work actively. She moved into academic administration in 2003 serving as Administrative Director, then as Assistant Dean for VCUarts until 2010. She currently lives and works in Tallahassee, Florida, and is the co-director of a collaborative project, Comma with Judy Rushin-Knopf.  Henne has had solo shows on a sandbar in Beaufort, North Carolina, and in galleries in Nashville; Staunton, Virginia; Richmond, Virginia; Doha, Qatar; and the Bronx. Her work has been shown at Art Works (Florida), the Kuntoffice Gallery (Germany) and National Institutes of Health National Library of Medicine. Her work has been reviewed in Sculpture, Art Papers and Gulf Times (Doha, Qatar).

Rushin-Knopf is best known for her work that blurs the boundary between painting, sculpture and textiles. Her work is a bricolage of weaving, tufting, dyeing, casting and painting which she combines into semi-abstract pieces that explore states of precarious balance in an entropic world. She is also a collaborator with Henne on the Comma project, which produces boxed editions of small sculptural objects. Rushin-Knopf鈥檚 work has been included in numerous gallery and museum exhibitions nationally and resides in fine art library collections, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The Frick Fine Arts Library and the Kohler Art Library. She is represented by Ivy Brown Gallery in New York.

The University Galleries visitor hours are Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Tuesday and Thursday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission to the galleries is free and open to the public. For more information about the Department of Art & Design, visit  or follow them on Instagram @murraystateart.