McMaster Gallery in USC’s Department of Art will feature MONTAGE, an exhibition of works by department chair Phillip C. Dunn, through Feb. 8.

Phillip Dunn

“As a landscape photographer, my interests usually lie in depicting our natural environment. The seasons, time of day, the elements, and locale form the basis for attempting to compose an image that connects the viewer with a specific geographical locality at one particular moment in time. Often, instead of controlling the situation, the photographic artist is at the mercy of the very components he or she is trying to portray.

“But what if the landscape became the beginning of a work of art, instead of the outcome? What if the landscape served as a motif in a larger abstraction that made the real become unreal?

“Each of the images presented here began as a landscape or detail of a landscape. The landscape image has been used as a motif (a repeated pattern) to construct a montage that obscures the original slice of reality that was used to create it. The resulting images become reminiscent of the kaleidoscope designs we marveled at as children or patterns that might be more familiar when seen in quilts or Persian rugs.

“On one level, these artworks challenge the viewer to decode or deconstruct them as they present a reality that only exists in the work itself. On another level, the motifs can be combined in such a way that they provide a means for examining a locale from a fresh point of view.

“In some cases the reality of the motif is so strong that it creates entirely recognizable images of something that does not actually exist. Finally, the montages encourage the viewer to create totally new meanings by seeking shapes and textures that can be equated with the real world in the same way that we often recognize shapes in clouds.

“Abstraction involves manipulating reality without entirely turning away from it. These images are intended to do just that … and more.”

A Chicago native, Dunn received his BFA in art education from the University of Illinois in Urbana, studied photography and design at the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, and received his doctorate in art education from Ball State University. During his career, Dunn has taught art at all grade levels from kindergarten through graduate school. He has been a professor of art at USC since 1978.

Dunn’s research and production interests in art education revolve around using "low end–high tech" strategies to integrate the arts into the general school curriculum through the creation of conceptually and thematically oriented art curricula that are tailored to fit the needs of individuals. He authored a trio of interactive curriculum planning software programs for art and classroom teachers titled The Curriculum Navigator for Art (elementary, middle, and high school versions). He followed that series with InFolio, an electronic portfolio software program that makes it possible for art teachers to journal with students and evaluate their art works, and The Interactive Gallery, a series of interactive programs based on the collections a variety of museums.

Dunn teaches a variety of courses that deal with multidisciplinary approaches to curriculum construction, the educational uses of interactive hypermedia, program administration and management, and teaching methodologies for art educators. Over the past eight years, his summer technology workshops for art teachers have garnered more than $600,000 in outside funding and trained more than 400 of South Carolina’s art teachers in how to incorporate technology into public school art programs

The author of numerous books and articles, his publications include the Pulitzer nominated and Lillian Smith Book Award winner, A True Likeness: The Black South of Richard Samuel Roberts, 1920–1936; Promoting School Art: A Practical Approach; and Creating Curriculum in Art.

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