Reaching new heights, McNeese State University professor Gerry Wubben will display his work in a Louisiana Art & Science Museum exhibit set to open Dec. 3.
The exhibit, Passages of Time, will feature Wubben’s seven-foot high charcoal drawings, which resemble four sheets of paper pinned together, making a composite image.
A versatile artist, Wubben moved to Lake Charles in 1987 and has since served as a professor of printmaking and drawing. The drawings are detailed portraits of Wubben’s friends and family.
The artwork — featuring his children as babies, his father with a head injury after a fall, his wife holding a baby, his friend in good health and then shortly before he died — show, as the name suggests, the passages of time.
Wubben’s artwork, serving as a record of one’s time, helps one to remember people and places, paralleling the current “selfie culture,” museum curator Elizabeth Weinstein said.
“His images show certain points in people’s lives, and it’s a record of them in a particular moment in time,” Weinstein said.
As an art and science museum, Weinstein said LASM’s goal is to show the origins of art. Paper was invented in the 1100s, and by the Renaissance, charcoal became a popular drawing medium, as people began sketching on paper.
“During the Renaissance, artists like Leonardo and Raphael made lots and lots of charcoal sketches on paper,” Weinstein said. “Wubben’s work is more finished and includes more detail, but it has a link with the past through the medium he has chosen to work with.”
Every exhibition is special and has its own set of variables, Weinstein said. She’s looking forward to seeing how Passages of Time plays out and believes guests will react quite favorably to the exhibit, especially because the drawings are so large. She said when the expectation of scale changes, it becomes very interesting.
“You often think of drawings as being small,” Weinstein said. “You think of portraits as perhaps being paintings. There is a fragility with this kind of medium, a kind of impermanence but yet, they’re meant to be permanent.”
Recently, Wubben has been experimenting with iPad drawing. Some of these drawings will also be displayed, but in a separate gallery.
“For me, every exhibit is like having Christmas every day,” Weinstein said. “You can look at images all day long, but it’s not the same as being in front of the piece. When you put them on a museum wall instead of a cramped studio, they experience a different life.”
In January, Wubben will come to the museum to give a talk about his work, as part of LASM’s Art After Hours program. The exact date is tentative.

Gallery • 14 Photos

Jordan Marcell

Gerry Wubben's art on display on Dec. 1, 2016 at the Louisiana Art and Science Museum in downtown Baton Rouge.