South Orange pays tribute to two native artists

SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — The Walsh Gallery at Seton Hall University, in collaboration with the Lennie Pierro Memorial Arts Foundation, will host a tribute exhibition featuring South Orange natives Kiki and Seton Smith in “A Sense of Place.” The exhibition, with an accompanying catalog, honors two of the town’s most distinguished artists by considering their formative influences, while positioning their practices in the present.

The exhibition’s opening reception and tribute will be held on Sunday, Oct. 30, from 1 to 4 p.m. The exhibition continues through Dec. 9 and will be complemented by two programs: “An Artists’ Conversation,” moderated by Lynne Tillman, at Jubilee Hall on the university campus on Tuesday, Dec. 6, at 7 p.m.; and scholar Edward Whitley of Lehigh University will lecture on the topic of “Storytelling and Scholarship” in the Beck Rooms at the Walsh Library on Tuesday, Nov. 7, at 7 p.m. All programs, including admission to the exhibition, are free and open to the public.

The motivation for this project was the desire to acknowledge and share the major impact of the work by these artists who were raised in South Orange, and immersed in an environment of art and culture by their famous father, sculptor Tony Smith and opera singer mother, Jane Smith. The exhibition will explore the question “How does place irrevocably impact our sense of self?” Kiki Smith’s drawings and prints look to the natural world to understand the relationship between place and identity on a symbolic level. Seton Smith’s large-scale photographs look to the built environment to convey associations by moving within and navigating through space. Viewed in this context, each negotiates the complex psychological and emotional terrain in understanding the self and the manner in which place becomes a defining characteristic of identity.

For more information, see www.shu.edu/walshgallery. Seton Hall University is located at 400 S. Orange Ave. in South Orange. The Walsh Gallery is open 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

  Pierro Gallery, Seton Hall University, Walsh Gallery