Alexander Bershtein
Staff Writer
The Sykes Gallery, located on the ground floor of Millersville’s Breidenstine Hall, is hosting a new and exquisite exhibit by Lancaster-native, Jay Noble. This is the first showing of his technique with his artworks. He explains, “I never really have shown this work before. I thought this school would be fun to do something that involves students.” Noble also makes note of a previous association with Millersville, which helped set up the event.
Noble creates his art atop of old and classic art the refers to as “Master Paintings.” He creates movements over the paintings by drawing curves or lines, following the direction of his eyes as they examine the artwork. He describes his technique as “seeing a sort of rhythm between aspects” of the painting. He believes his work to be inferences of how the master artists created their work as well as a demonstration of how he understands the paintings. As he analyses the painting, the patterns he draws atop the painting bring a new picture to light. He coined his type of artistry as “Transcriptformations.”
Noble shows the stages of the process throughout the exhibit with color-coding. He explains that he “colored-coded them all with green, yellow, orange, and red dots to show the stages of their growth.” The paintings marked with green dots are sketched copies of the originals, and the yellow dots indicate the curves of the movements where Noble’s eyes follow. Orange starts to depict an entire new picture mixed into the old while red shows a new painting alien of the original masterpiece.
When people visit the gallery, they can see the process through which an artwork completely changes. A red dot for example, that Noble has created, is an entire new artwork over Tintoretto’s The Annunciation. Noble named the artwork “Flying-flippin-hog-dog over a Peacock.” It is almost impossible to see the original painting beneath the new.
However, this particular showcase is full of events, especially for art majors and minors. Noble will be working on some of his artworks until October 23 and invites Millersville’s students to join him on Wednesdays starting at 3:30 p.m. He is currently working on Poussin’s “The Abduction of the Sabine Women.” Students are able to observe and work with him on this project.