REVIEW: Alli McPhail NCRC Exhibition

This show was the first time that I had ever visited the North Campus Research Complex. The complex where the exhibition was housed was a wildly different aesthetic from the rest of the university. When one reaches NCRC Building 18, the first visual you are greeted with is the artistic sculptures on the exterior courtyard of the building. One sculpture is of a set of walls with a hole in one, the other sculpture is of a large ring, and the third sculpture is of a gigantic egg. Upon entering the building, it is a bit of a hunt to reach the McPhail Exhibition. One must take the elevator or walk down the stairs to the lower floor. As soon as you reach that lower floor, you must again take a second elevator to another lower floor, as the escalator tunnel is out of service at the time of this review. Upon coming down this elevator, one finally reaches the Alli McPhail Exhibition in the corridor. 

The corridor is a small, but cozy space, with tan marbled floors and yellow lighting. This gives the exhibition space a warm and desert-like aesthetic. Also, one can see a garden-like area outside of the corridor through large glass windows that display an atrium surrounded by concrete walls.  This desert-like aesthetic ties into McPhail’s artworks, as her work has much to do with the natural world. 

My favorite paintings included the following: Sedona, AZ; Emerald Lake, Canada; and East Grand Traverse Bay. In the Sedona, AZ painting, I enjoyed the usage of the hilltop perspective. I think that it gave a dynamic viewpoint from which the surrounding landscape could be viewed. The contrasting colors of the orange and brown cliff face, to the green forest in the valley, paired with the green and brown of the hill give an earthy, but majestic feeling. 

In the Emerald Lake painting, I was intrigued by the way in which the lake in the foreground and the hill in the background seemed to frame and display the mountain. I also enjoy the usage of cool colors in this painting. The careful conventions surrounding her usage of deep blues and greys for the lake gives an emotion of calm and stillness. The green colors in the painting add a fresh feeling that also serves to draw your eyes towards the stark white and grey of the President Range mountains. In the East Grand Traverse Bay painting, a feeling of warmth and summer was captured by the usage of bright blue, white, and tan acrylic paints. The dark color of the forests in the background surrounding the bay in the foreground breaks the monotony of the water while preparing your eyes to rest on the pale blue sky. 

In conclusion, I believe that this exhibition is the encapsulation of Alli’s intimate memories throughout her travels in North America. When viewing these works, you cannot help but to regain a sense of the grandiose views one might have when going on vacation as a child. There is a certain youthfulness here that leaves me refreshed and wanting to see more of Alli’s takes on nature. I would say that this exhibition is worth your time. If you find yourself within the North Campus Research Complex wanting a glimpse of the summer in these colder fall months, why not take a break and regain some of that warmth and wonder with Alli McPhail’s exhibition.