Visiting artist arrives
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Submitted photo
Painter Anthony Fisher at work in his Boston studio
The Indiana University Center for Art and Design will welcome its first artist/designer in residence when Anthony Fisher, a Massachusetts-based painter, arrives today.
During his five-day stay, Fisher will critique students in IU’s Master of Fine Arts program, speak to the public in Columbus about his work, and possibly visit art students at local schools.
“This is the start of a program that we hope becomes very robust,” said IUCA+D director T. Kelly Wilson. “I hope that at some point in time, there will be more than a dozen people here at one time, working on long-term projects,” Wilson said.
Since assuming the role of director of the center in August 2011, Wilson has dreamed of bringing working artists and designers from a variety of fields to show how good design cuts across a wide range of disciplines.
Fisher is an associate professor in fine arts at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and has a MFA degree from Yale University and a bachelor’s degree from Carnegie-Mellon.
Prior to joining the faculty at UMass, Fisher taught all levels of painting and drawing at Tufts University and The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Wilson said that he selected Fisher, a longtime friend, for this project because of his insight into how to think visually, and create a painting that is more than a literal interpretation of a particular object.
“Designers need a different kind of eye than just how to depict,” Wilson said.
In order to fully realize a design, Wilson said the designer should know how to evoke a certain kind of emotion, a skill that Fisher uses to maximum effect in his work.
“I use my raw materials to evoke emotion, not just sit there and describe something,” said Fisher. “I plead with this inert stuff — the paint — to arrange itself into some kind of form that can channel sensations.”
Wilson and Fisher became friends 30 years ago when they had studio space in the same South Boston building.
“His insight is strong,” Wilson said. “He’s the guy I invite to my studio once a year to tell me how my work is
going.”
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