Gordon Galleries Past Seasons

Solomon Enos: Papahanaumoku

Works by Solomon Robert Nui Enos
On View Sept. 15 – Dec. 16, 2023

Solomon Robert Nui Enos is a Native Hawaiian artist, illustrator, and visionary. Born and raised in Makaha Valley (O‘ahu, Hawai‘i), he hails from the well-known Enos ‘ohana and has been making art for more than 30 years. Papahanaumoku references one of the foundational mo‘olelo or stories, telling of the mother, Papa, who birthed the islands, from Hawai‘i island to Kaua‘i and beyond. Works created for this exhibition offer a conceptual continuation of the peopling of islands, as the effects of climate change reshape our planet’s land masses, ecologies, and societies.

Fall 2023 Senior Exhibition: Preservation

On View Dec. 1 - 16

The Baron and Ellin Gordon Art Galleries are pleased to present Preservation, a two-person exhibition by Rayven Harris and Laura Koffman, graduating seniors from the ODU Art Department.

This show will include an installation by Koffman comprised of prints to honor a person she did not know personally who died as a result of police negligence. Harris’ work focuses on more personal connection to her deceased father. Installations by both artists share an exploration of death while preserving the memory of those who have been lost.

Rayven Harris was born in 1998 in Petersburg, Virginia and raised in the Chesterfield area. She is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on photography. Her work concentrates on how memories can be preserved through photographs. She will graduate from Old Dominion University with a BFA majoring in photography and then plans to pursue a career in art therapy. She currently lives and works in Norfolk, Virginia.

Laura Koffman was born in Jacksonville, North Carolina in 1992. Raised in Virginia Beach, she is a multi-disciplinary artist expected to complete her BFA with a focus in printmaking in December 2023. Her prints are informed by systems of power who negatively impact society, in an attempt to combat or counteract collective forgetting. She is a 2023 recipient of the Lorraine Fink Scholarship in Honor of Ken Daley. Koffman plans to pursue an MFA with hopes of becoming an art professor. She currently lives and works in Norfolk, Virginia.

Concrete Ocean: Works by Leigh Merrill

On view Jan.12 through Feb 17, 2024

“Culling through thousands of individual photographs and videos I make of architecture and landscaping; I digitally assemble these sources to create my work. Some images have veracity, but more often, they suggest a visual hyperbole – an embellished scene circulating around a small object or detail. I am continually fascinated with photography’s ability to be evidence of existence – creating an image with seeming veracity – and simultaneously, a system to mediate and construct reality. I use photography to observe and then digitally combine my photographs to construct spaces that do not exist, allowing the creation of images that, through metaphor and illusion, reveal both the desire and simulacrum present around us and within photography itself.”

2024 Juried Student Exhibition

On view Mar. 1 through Apr 6, 2024

Featuring artwork from students actively working in the ODU Art Department Studio Arts programs, and selected by a juror who is an active professional within the Visual Arts.

Paintings from the Porch: Works by Jake McCord

On view Jan. 12 - May 4, 2024

Jake McCord (1945 - 2009) of Thomson, Georgia grew up planting and picking crops on his family's farm. He later cut grass and drove a truck for that city, which recognized him as an exceptionally hard worker. In the mid-1980s McCord began to paint and took inspiration from his life and several television sets running simultaneously in his home. He installed paintings on his front porch for passersby to see and would allow them to be sold only after feeling they had been on view for the right amount of time. McCord described his depictions of people, animals, and scenes as jolly, which helped keep him company and which he hoped would help those who saw his work. This exhibition presents a number of those jolly paintings from the porch.

2024 Spring Senior Exhibition: It’s My Party

On view Apr. 26- May 4, 2024

The Baron and Ellin Gordon Art Galleries proudly present It’s My Party… by graduating seniors of the ODU Art Department. On view from April 26th, 2024, to May 4th, 2024, with an opening reception on Thursday, April 25th from 6 to 8pm. The exhibition features 12 artists whose range of media and methods confront their pasts to show a developing future. Through painting, 3D media, photography and animation, these artists offer a collection of work that demonstrates themes ranging from vulnerability and identity to societal and environmental concerns.