Skip to Main Content
Boston University
  • Bostonia
  • BU Today
  • The Brink
  • University Publications

    • Bostonia
    • BU Today
    • The Brink
  • School & College Publications

    • The Record
Other Publications
BU Today
  • Sections
News, Opinion, Community

Viewing the Visual Arts: Campus Art, Campus Life

A five-part series on the year's memorable exhibitions

Click on the slide show above to view images from the exhibition.

Point, line, form, shape, movement, color, pattern, and texture are the fundamental elements of visual design. At art’s deeper levels lie creativity, freedom, expression, and emotion. Six galleries around Boston University’s campus, from the independent nonprofit Photographic Resource Center to the 808 Gallery, provide at least one more element of design for students and visiting visual artists: exhibition space.

This week’s series remembers five of the visual arts exhibitions from around campus in 2006 and 2007, ranging from a graphic look at Hispanic stereotypes in American culture to an exploration of the myths and mysteries of Soviet labor camps. Click here to see “You People: A Graphic Look at Hispanic Stereotypes.” Click here to see “Printmaking, Past and Present.” Click here to see “You People: A Graphic Look at Hispanic Stereotypes.” Check back tomorrow for “Out of the Shadows, the Gulag.”

Campus Art, Campus Life
CFA Class Connects Art to Science

By Paul Heerlein and Taylor McNeil

A dozen large, colorful panels hang gracefully in the Metcalf Center for Science and Engineering atrium, their images — some like cascading cells, others like fractals — represent the mysteries of nature being studied by the building’s scientists. Called Visual Entanglements, they “give visibility and emotional tangibility to the research,” says Hugh O’Donnell, a College of Fine Arts professor of painting. It’s the latest installation from his Site-Specific Art class, which is open to all BU students.

“It brings visibility to the talent that’s at Boston University,” O’Donnell said. Other art developed in the class is on display at the Photonics Center, on T signs at the BU West stop, in the FitRec Center, and in Sargent College, and more is planned. One ongoing project, headed by an art education graduate student, brings high school students to campus to design art for Sargent College’s Ryan Center for Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation. The students are making mosaic murals of athletes using broken ceramics. “The people who go in there are broken in a way and will see things of beauty made of broken things,” O’Donnell notes.

The Visual Entanglements project was developed by two painting students, Brienne Rosner (CFA’05) and Holland Dieringer (CFA’05), “with the help of a whole bunch of physics, chemistry, and biology graduate students and faculty,” says O’Donnell. The concept was inspired by research on entangled photons, in which two light particles can act as a single unit but perform with twice the efficiency. “They looked at how you can cross-fertilize different kinds of imagery,” he says. “If it’s engaging enough, people can be led to discover the people working behind these things, in research.”

Future projects include more art for the Photonics Center and for the School of Medicine pharmacology department, as well as off-campus work for Red Bull, among others. O’Donnell’s work, site-specific art that highlights the collaboration between the arts and the sciences, is on display on the first floor of the Life Science and Engineering Building, at 24 Cummington St., and in the foyer of the Photonics Center, at 8 St. Mary’s St.

Paul Heerlein can be reached at heerlein@bu.edu. Taylor McNeil can be reached at tmcneil@bu.edu.

“Campus Art, Campus Life” originally appeared on BU Today in March 2007.

 

Explore Related Topics:

  • Exhibitions
  • Students
  • Visual Arts
  • Share this story

Share

Viewing the Visual Arts: Campus Art, Campus Life

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • LinkedIn
  • Email

Latest from BU Today

  • Education

    What’s Behind the Rise in Violence Against Teachers?

  • Fine Arts

    How I Made This: Jacob Whitchurch (CFA’26)

  • Things-to-do

    To Do Today: Seaport Sweat

  • Film & TV

    Did You Win Free Tickets to See Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning Tonight?

  • COMMENCEMENT 2025

    Experience BU’s 2025 Commencement from a Terrier Point of View

  • Obituaries

    Remembering Leslie Epstein, Pillar of BU’s Creative Writing Program

  • Voices & Opinion

    POV: This Memorial Day, Remember BU’s Fallen Heroes by Visiting the New Online Honor Wall

  • University News

    23 Charles River Campus Faculty Promoted to Full Professor

  • Commencement 2025

    Photos: A Look Back at BU’s Commencement

  • Theatre

    It’s “Prom Season” at Wheelock Family Theatre

  • Things-to-do

    Six Spots to Check Out This Memorial Day in Boston

  • Commencement 2025

    Video: Class of 2025: What We’ll Take with Us as We Begin a New Chapter

  • Health & Medicine

    What Does Biden’s Cancer Diagnosis Mean?

  • Watch Now

    BU’s Class of 2025: What Are Your Plans After Graduating?

  • Fitness

    BU Sports Rehab Therapists on Jayson Tatum’s Achilles Injury and Recovery Ahead

  • Commencement 2025

    Sights and Sounds from Boston University’s Class of 2025 Commencement

  • Commencement 2025

    Video: 2025 Graduate Jayde Best: “I Ended Up Exactly Where I Wanted to Be”

  • Commencement 2025

    “Empathy Is Essential,” BU Commencement Speaker Emily Deschanel Tells 2025 Graduates

  • Voices & Opinion

    I’m a Business Professor Who Asked Dozens of Former Students How They Define Success

  • Commencement 2025

    Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine Convocations a Joyous Affair

Section navigation

  • Sections
  • Must Reads
  • Videos
  • Series
  • Close-ups
  • Archives
  • About + Contact
Get Our Email

Explore Our Publications

Bostonia

Boston University’s Alumni Magazine

BU Today

News, Opinion, Community

The Brink

Pioneering Research from Boston University

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram
  • Weibo
  • TikTok
© Boston University. All rights reserved. www.bu.edu
© 2025 Trustees of Boston UniversityPrivacy StatementAccessibility
Boston University
Notice of Non-Discrimination: Boston University prohibits discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, color, natural or protective hairstyle, religion, sex or gender, age, national origin, ethnicity, shared ancestry and ethnic characteristics, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, genetic information, pregnancy or pregnancy-related condition, military service, marital, parental, veteran status, or any other legally protected status in any and all educational programs or activities operated by Boston University. Retaliation is also prohibited. Please refer questions or concerns about Title IX, discrimination based on any other status protected by law or BU policy, or retaliation to Boston University’s Executive Director of Equal Opportunity/Title IX Coordinator, at titleix@bu.edu or (617) 358-1796. Read Boston University’s full Notice of Nondiscrimination.
Search
Boston University Masterplate
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
Viewing the Visual Arts: Campus Art, Campus Life
0
share this