2 professional artists display art in Memorial Hall

When you first walk into Memorial Hall Main Gallery, the rotating globes can be a bit overwhelming. Roughly 20 spheres of differing sizes are on display.
Dick Termes, an internationally known artist of Spearfish, South Dakota, has created more than 400 spherical works of art since 1968 and now makes a living as a full-time artist.
The paintings on display rotate slowly clockwise, though after looking at them for a short while, they appear to switch direction. The convex art pieces play tricks on the mind and appear to look concave instead. The viewer starts to see the image as though they were standing within the sphere, looking out at the world. According to the information booklet in the gallery, this is a crucial part of viewing Termes’ work.
While these paintings are initially done in two-point perspective, the sphere pushes them instead to a six-point perspective when viewing.
The uniqueness of these spheres have earned them a name: “Termespheres.” Termes is “recognized as one of the most original and innovative visual artists living today,” according to the booklet.
After receiving bachelor’s degree in education from Black Hills State University, Spearfish, South Dakota, Termes began a career in teaching. Four years later, he continued his education at the University of Wyoming, Laramie, to earn a master’s degree in art. It was then he began to explore perspective art. Termes was offered a full scholarship to complete his M.A. at Otis Art Institution in Los Angeles.
At the completion of his academic career, Termes returned to Black Hills State, and began teaching as an associate professor in art.
Since then, Termes has quit his educational teaching career and begun to practice art full-time, though he has presented seminars on art and math all over the world.
In 2014, Spearfish, South Dakota, named Sept. 9 “Dick Termes’ Day.”
In Memorial Hall Room 239, Rebecca Nolda’s mixed media art show, “Cypher, De-Cypher,” is on display. In the artist statement on display with her work, Nolda says she likes to “think about the differences between what we imagine and what we see as reality.”
A combination of work on canvas and metal, her work is both vague and perplexing. The metal gives off a sort of industrial feel that hints at the changes going on in the world today.
Roughly 10 to 15 pieces are displayed in the gallery, all ranging in medium, canvas and size.
Interesting parts of her work include pieces of metal bolted to a metal canvas and the appearance of paper glued to metal.
One of the most interesting art pieces is a series. All the titles include “Diary” and they are labeled one through six. The pieces are mixed medium on aluminum cradled panel and include what looks like ink stamped directly onto the metal. The words have a somewhat poetic ring to them, which gives the feel of combining more than one literary art.
Several of her pieces include writing ranging from actual words, as in the piece above, to mathematical equations to what appears to be dates.
The numbers are a common theme in all pieces. Half of the artworks share their industrial theme, using aluminum or other kinds of metal as the canvas, and others use gallery canvas. Several of the paintings done on gallery canvas have thick layers of paint, and while they appear to be relatively simple and have open space, they also contain the interesting symbols which, according to Nolda, are all open for their own interpretation.
Nolda has a master’s degree in studio art from the University of Minnesota, and she has lived in New Mexico for over 25 years. She says it is a continuing source of inspiration. She also says she enjoys the opportunity to work with other artists in a learning situation to grow her understanding of art.
These shows will be on display until Feb. 10 in Memorial Hall Main Gallery and Room 239. The gallery hours are 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday or by appointment.