Faculty holds silent art auction to raise funds

December 6, 2011February 25, 2020 The Guardsman

By Lucas Almeida

The Guardsman

City College’s annual faculty art show is currently on display through Dec.7 in the college’s art gallery located in the Visual Arts building,

The exhibition also included a silent auction that gave people the opportunity to bid on their favorite art pieces.

“The faculty is asked to donate one piece of art work to the gallery [for the auction] because we need more money to maintain it,” said art department chair Ana Asebedo. “The bidding starts from $20 to $25 dollars and all the funds go to running the gallery.”

Asebedo’s art piece on display is a watercolor painting that compares mothers who live in safe environments with other women who live in environments plagued by war and violence, such as Iraq.

“I became a mother late in life. I had a child when I was 40, during the onset of the war in Iraq,” she said. “This painting tells the story of the lucky middle-aged woman who becomes a mother, and compares it to [that of] a woman who becomes a mother and develops a family amidst violence.”

Other faculty artists include Nancy Elliott, who teaches basic design. Her piece, “Girl From Burma,” is about a poor rural Asian women being lured into prostitution.

“I was watching a documentary about prostitution and sex slavery,” Elliott said. “It featured a young Burmese woman who returned from Thailand to die in her village from AIDS. She spoke of what led her to Thailand, that she was promised work as a food vendor. But, of course when she arrived there was no such job. She was told her only option was to sell her body. The artwork is a response to her story.”

Elliot’s newest piece is unlike most of her previous work

“The majority of my work is autobiographical,” she said. “I’m a visual diarist. Recently I have become bored blabbing about myself. Instead, I wanted to talk about other women’s lives.”