Gallery 210 at UM-St. Louis (UMSL) presents a milestone exhibition this fall: “Exposure: 10 Years” is a retrospective of 90 works of art by 33 artists who have exhibited at the gallery since the first annual Exposure show opened there eleven years ago. 

Terry Suhre, Director of Gallery 210, explains, “The Exposure series originated with the St. Louis Art Gallery Association in the late 1990s and was housed at Hunt Gallery on the campus of Webster University. Beginning in 2005, Gallery 210 took ownership.” 

Exposure’s tenth anniversary at Gallery 210 coincides with the gallery’s 45^th anniversary. “When Gallery 210 debuted in 1971 [at UMSL], it was one of very few venues in the St. Louis Metropolitan Area focusing exclusively on contemporary art,” Suhre says. 

The artworks in this exhibition display a dazzling variety of media, and the inspiration for each piece is as varied as the pieces themselves.

Sarah Colby based “Angel Disc” on a religious tract slid under the door of her house. Her 60” x 60” x 9” piece is comprised of wood, fabric, and PVC. Four 10”-diameter discs, covered with black fabric, are symmetrically arranged on the floor around one large disc which measures approximately 30” and is covered with blue fabric and sequins. The discs may reference heavenly orbs like the sun and moon.

Each disc features a phrase from the religious tract. All phrases describe angels: “They are vegetarians”, “They DO shine”, “Angels are 30 ft. tall / They don’t have wings”, “They know how to control the weather”, and “I asked to see heaven so I could describe it. The angel replied, ‘Oh you couldn’t. You’ll find it more than a little different.’ ” These delightful phrases are wonderfully specific and original, and lead the viewer to speculate about the rest of the religious tract’s content.

Jerry Monteith took the inspiration for his “Attractors” series from fishing flies. The series is made up of “miniature sculptures…made using a broad range of traditional fly-tying techniques and materials,” explains Monteith. “Fishing flies are designed to mimic a specific insect at a particular stage of its life… [These pieces] pay homage to the incredible diversity of insect life.” 

The eight sculptures in the show are creations of imaginary species and average a few inches in length. One piece, “Green Eye”, is a two-legged, green-eyed creature with a sharply pointed green tail. Silvery-brown hair covers its legs and head, and a translucent shell overlays its tail. It’s made with vinyl, prismatic and nylon cords, hackle, fur, plastic, glass, and thread on steel.

Melody Evans calls attention to the preciousness of water in her ceramic piece “What’s in the Water”. It educates viewers about the importance and safety of water with regard to lead and other contaminants.

Evans’ piece spans one wall and extends out onto the gallery floor. On the wall, small white irregularly-shaped tiles feature illustrations of single-celled creatures called rotifers that live in water. They are the smallest animals in the animal kingdom and are crucial to water’s health. Pollution easily harms them. These tiles are interspersed with larger tiles decorated with blue-green glazes, which represent the translucency and flow of water, and also evoke the feeling of swimming through it. Pastel green, brown, and purple trickle stains, which also represent water, flow down the wall from top to bottom. 

Black ceramic fish, symbolic of contaminants and death, swim down the wall to the floor piece. Measuring 36” x 24” x 18”, this piece is a pedestal with a brown and green ceramic pot that pours a stream of ceramic water down to the floor, where the black fish circle a white tile on which is drawn the molecule for lead.

One large wall tile displays the words “I DO NOT KNOW”. This answers the supposed question in the title (“What’s in the Water”) and also evokes the unknowable, the mystery of life. 

“Exposure: 10 Years” is on view at Gallery 210 through December 3. The gallery is located at 44 Grobman Drive between the North UMSL MetroLink station and the Touhill Performing Arts Center. Gallery hours are Tuesday – Saturday, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.; and closed Sunday and Monday. For more information, call 314-516-5976 or visit www.gallery210.umsl.edu.