Gallery Hopping

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Sculptures by Carl Dahl and paintings by Jeff Bertoncino are currently being displayed at the Memorial Student Union Gallery.

It's hot. You know that.

But what you might not know is that instead of spending all your time indoors watching TV, you can gaze upon interesting art by mostly local artists in the many small galleries in the UA's Memorial Student Union and Fine Arts Complex.

The first stop on our tour is the Union Gallery, on the first floor of the Memorial Student Union.

You should catch this one quickly. It's the last exhibition the Union Gallery will ever see, as the gallery is closing on June 10 to accommodate the first phase of the union renovation.

Currently on display is an exhibition with paintings by Jeff Bertoncino and sculpture by Carl Dahl.

Bertoncino's paintings range from huge to small, but all use warm colors, with one color dominating the rest, usually brown or a dark rust color, or a faded gold.

Each painting has an etched outline of a man somewhere in it - the huge, blurry blocks of color surrounding the figures make them seem as if they're staring forlornly down a hallway or out a window.

On the walls are the outlines, and Dahl's sculptures fill in the empty spaces. In the middle of the gallery are a series of marble and bronze sculptures of mostly male torsos, which seem to give body and dimension to Bertonchino's paintings.

Next, head upstairs to the Arizona Gallery for Laurie Surah: Forgotten Orbits. Surah's work is collage-esque, as she paints watercolor pictures on paper and then cuts the paper into strips which are woven together with other painted strips to create fragmented images.

She even makes her own frames out of paper and gold leaf. Surah's paintings are colorful and interesting, but rather ornate.

The best part of the exhibit is learning that Surah used to show paintings under an alias: "L. Rosenstock Giangregorio."

Trudge up one more flight of stairs and you'll find yourself in Rotunda Gallery land, surrounded by the paintings of Jules Nathan.

Nathan started painting at a very late age, but his paintings are almost childlike. They depict busy and bright jungle scenes, with lions and tigers and bears and monkeys and deer and storks and swans.

Now our tour will take us outside of the Memorial Student Union and over to the University of Arizona's Fine Arts complex, where the Rombach and Joseph Gross Galleries are housed.

In the Rombach gallery is Recollect: Abstract Photography by Seiichi Kanaizuka and Roberto Lopardo.

Kanaizuka's color photography lines one wall, while Lompardo's black and white images line the other.

All are blurry and large, but starkly beautiful.

Lompardo and Kanaizuka are both UA students working toward their bachelor degrees in studio art.

Turn the corner and you'll find yourself in the Joseph Gross Gallery, where British artist James Chinneck's American/English is on display.

The exhibit deals with tourism, on almost any level imaginable - "Inauthentic Contrived Attraction II" is a rock from Mars.

"Inauthentic Contrived Attraction III" is moon dust. It's not all space-themed, though.

What American/English seeks to uncover is what kinds of "tourist attractions" drive people hundreds and thousands of miles away from their homes, just to have a look.

Stop by "Inauthentic Contrived Attraction IV," the Gaze Counter, and see how many people have looked at it.