Byron Anway's "Gatherings"
From January 15 to February 14, the Viterbo University Art Department hosted an exhibition of works by Byron Anway, an assistant professor of practice at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Hixon-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts. The collection centered on the ways and reasons people gather. The featured mediums were oil, watercolor, and graphite on canvas. In part, bright watercolors and soft oil paints filled depictions of large gatherings with a sense of unity.
The individual concerns of the people depicted were only noticed at a close distance; from afar, horizontal bands of background color blended skin tone, emotion, position, and action into a collective picture of the human experience. In appreciating his art, it is clear that whether those he depicts are gathering for entertainment, to promote a shared cause, or to share in solemn procession, Anway draws the viewer in to notice the small details.
Looking closely at his work reveals the individuals. Whether alone or with others, each person seems to be speaking a soliloquy. One painting titled “Vegas” washed in shades of blue, green, and yellow, shows a variety of people in countless states and actions. A pale, dark-haired man stands alone near the center of the picture, looking out at the world in distress. Elsewhere, two figures embrace near a picnic blanket, and a man with a large natural hairstyle looks down in quiet contemplation of his surroundings. They do not regard one another.
All these small pictures within the larger one evoked reflection on how often humans live in microcosms that are feet apart. People passing by one another on city streets, lost in the music that pours from earbuds or the videos that slide by on a phone screen, are the same people that Anway examines in his art.
The “Pilgrimage” series, a set of six works drawn completely in graphite, paralleled the watercolor and oil images by hinting at the little ways in which people make connections. They show crowds of people dressed in hooded cloaks moving together around ancient-looking walls. As the series progresses, some hoods are removed, heads turn, and—perhaps—members of the procession share in conversation. With its simple and beautiful mediums, “Gatherings” showed its viewers that though humanity is made up of countless lives, we can weave the threads of existence together in the ways that we gather, whether we know it or not.