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On the foggy Wednesday evening of Oct. 3, UVM students, professors and members of the Burlington community gathered at University of Vermont’s Fleming Museum of Art to celebrate the installation of four new exhibits this fall. 

UVM President Sullivan was in attendance and helped open the reception by speaking about the value of the art and exhibitions newly on display for the campus as a whole.  

“One of the things that pops right off the canvas this evening, and you’ll see, is this enormous connection between education and art and learning,” President Sullivan said. 

The Oceanic Life exhibit, which opened on Sept. 18, depicts life in the Oceanic island chains and lands stretching from Hawaii to Australia and Southeast Asia. It explores the various material objects that the people use in daily and ceremonial life. 

“I was overcome by the beautiful simplicity I found in each object,” first-year Grace McGeehan said. “The collection took something as ordinary as a dish and gave me insight on what exactly it was used for.” 

The display allows visitors to become engulfed in the culture of Oceania with detailed summaries explaining the purpose of each object.

Fleming collections manager Margaret Tumulonis worked with students in the anthropology department to curate the exhibit. 

“What I really enjoy about working with students on a project like this is that they usually see things that I don’t see and I am really interested in those different perspectives,” Tumulonis said.

The second exhibit included in the opening was From Mourning to Night: John Singer Sargent and Black in Fashion. 

This exhibit displayed a series of paintings, newspaper clippings and clothes that exemplifyied the pervasive culture of mourning in the 19th century. 

In particular, the exhibit demonstrated artist John Singer Sargent’s role in popularizing the color black for mourning couture in America. 

It included mourning dresses with intricate lace and beading patterns that left viewers immersed in the beauty of his work. 

The exhibit also includes fashion magazines and publicly exhibited portraits that helped spread the reach of fashion and paved way for the time period’s budding fashionistas. 

Presented alongside these exhibits was Thornton Dial’s Life Go On and Lady Will Stand By Her Tiger. The exhibit featured a series of watercolor paintings that depict the relationships between men and women as well as the struggle between power and faith through simplistic paintings of women presented alongside fish, roosters and tigers, which are all representations of men. 

The fourth exhibit included in the opening was Outcasts and Rebels, a set of prints by William Blake and Leonard Baskin. The exhibit displays a set of haunting prints portraying the struggle of the human soul trying to free itself from reason and organized religion. 

From Mourning to Night, Thoughts on Paper and Outcasts and Rebels will be open until Dec. 14, and Oceanic Art and the Performance of Life will be open until May 24. Students receive free admission to the exhibits.