St. Edward's University Provided 'Most Memorable' Art of 2015

SOUTH AUSTIN, TX -- St. Edward’s University was twice cited in a local Top 10 list as originating some of the most memorable art of 2015.

The Austin Chronicle selected “Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play” by the Mary Moody Northen Theatre and “Blanket of Fog (Women & Their Work)” by Hollis Hammonds, associate professor of art, as some of the past year’s most memorable works of art.

The former was a production by the university theatre of the American dark comedy play written by Anne Washburn that premiered in 2012. Set in a dystopian landscape following a global catastrophe, the play centers on a group of survivors remembering the “Cape Feare” episode of the long-running television show “The Simpsons.”

The play examines how the retelling in the survivors’ remembering differs seven years after the apocalyptic event--the nature of which is unspecified--and eventually 75 years later.

The memorable episode of “The Simpsons” undergoes a metamorphosis in the post-destruction world from mere recollection to an artistic vehicle in search of human connection.

“The same episode of the Simpsons, now a familiar mythos, has been reworked into a musical pageant, with the story, characters, and morals re-purposed to fit the artistic and dramatic needs of a culture still reeling from destruction of civilization and the near-extinction of humanity decades earlier,” explains Wikipedia.

The Austin Chronicle review is decidedly more succinct in explaining why the locally staged production was so memorable. The reviewer notes “...how fortunate we are that Anne Washburn’s dark musical ode to theatre, culture memory, and (especially) ’The Simpsons’ was produced at St. Edwards under the direction of David Long.”

On her website, Hammonds describes the inspiration for the haunting art exhibit “Blanket of Fog.” The minimalist yet arresting collection of artifacts held together to evoke traumatic images from her childhood--accented with video projections--was exhibited in April.

“There has been a blanket of fog, a dense and heavy weight, hovering over me since I was a child,” Hammonds explains. “On March 29th, 1986, my childhood home burned down. Ever since then, I’ve been obsessed with piles of rubble, and I’ve been trying to memorialize events and preserve memories through my various collections, constructions and drawings.”

In recreating from the fog of youthful memory, Hammonds presented a variety of images, “...from mundane objects to what i define as ‘artifacts,’ assembled collected and collaged together through drawings and installations,” she describes on her website.

The Austin Chronicle reviewer was among those impressed with the work, also listing it as among the most indelible works from the past year.

The exhibit “...with wall-sized drawings, with video projections, with complex sculpture in the center of the space….” examined not only personal history but the structure of memory itself, the review wrote.

You can see images of Hammonds’ hauntingly beautiful--and memorable--art installation here.