LOGAN — The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, located on the campus of Utah State University, will feature the art installation “Domestic Arsenal” by USU faculty member Eileen Doktorski.

            The exhibit can be seen at the museum April 5 through June 30. An opening reception, including an artist talk by Doktorski, is Wednesday, April 5, from 6-7 p.m. All are invited.

            “Much of my interest in art is rooted in how it can seemingly transform the familiar, inciting us to think in new ways,” said Doktorski.

            Doktorski’s sculptural installation, “Domestic Arsenal,” is a room filled with hundreds of transformed objects. A bed is mounded with a mass of household objects: shoes, an iron, a baseball bat, pots, hairbrushes and furniture.

            “The viewer is drawn into a domestic tableau, then the scene shifts as you uncover the disturbing nature of the objects that glint in the dimly lit room,” said Victoria Rowe, museum director. “On closer inspection, the surface of the objects has an unearthly iridescent, ethereal luster as though buried or burned in a fire.”

            Some of the objects in the installation have been covered with paint and metallic finishes, or are ceramic. Others are cast in bronze.

            A recent viewer described the eerie beauty of the objects as “something from a dream, a memory of an object that has all the dimensions of the physical, but colored by emotion.”

            The wallpaper reveals itself to be yellowed newspapers pinned to the walls; clipped articles that tell stories of ordinary household objects that have been used to harm or kill.

            “‘Domestic Arsenal’ is a work done in response to family violence, in which household items are often the weapon used to inflict harm,” Doktorski said. “I see art as having the potential to move us to question our current ways of thinking. It is a memorial, a work of magnitude, aimed at increasing awareness on the subject of family violence and leaving an enduring effect on those who enter into the space of the work.”

            The artist began her investigation while working as a consultant for the New Haven, Conn. Police Academy. After graduating from Yale University, Doktorski worked with future police officers in an inner city area with one of the highest domestic violence rates in the country. Her task was to help officers, through visual exercises, to gain a greater understanding of the members of the community. As she worked with the officers, she began gathering stories of domestic abuse.

            As the collection of stories grew, she sought a way to compile the stories in an evocative way that documented the situations of individuals, without sensationalizing the events or just recording another statistic, she said.

            Continuing her work once she moved to Logan, Doktorski said she hopes to increase social awareness and the collective responsibility for family violence in Utah.

            Doktorski received her master’s of fine art degree in sculpture from the Yale School of Art and her bachelor’s of fine art from Parsons School of Design. She has had 12 solo exhibitions of her work, including presentations at the Paul Mellon Arts Center; the Finch Lange Gallery, Salt Lake City; the Pendleton Center for the Arts; and the Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw, Poland. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New Jersey State Council for the Arts, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the Kosciuszko Foundation. She was also a Fulbright Scholar at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland. She was a visiting professor at Whitman College prior to joining the faculty in the department of art at USU in 2002.

            Doktorski is a 2003-04 recipient of a New Faculty Research Grant at USU. That grant partially funded this installation.

            For more information about this installation, or to schedule a tour of the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, call (435) 797-0165.

            The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art is located on the USU campus at 650 North 1100 East, Logan, Utah, 84322, (435) 797-0163; fax (435) 7978-3423. Information is available at the museum’s Web site, http://www.artmuseum.usu.edu. The museum is open Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday, noon-4 p.m. The museum is closed Sundays, Mondays and holidays. Admission is free. The museum is accessible to persons with disabilities.

            Parking for the museum is available in lot “C3” to the west of the museum. The parking fee in this area is $6 ($3 will be refunded if parked for two hours or less). Parking is free after 3:45 p.m. and on weekends. Parking is also available in the USU Parking Terrace, located near the Taggart Student Center for $1.50/hour ($7.50/day maximum). Free parking after 2 p.m. is available at lot “B,” located at the corner of 700 North and 1200 East (by Aggie Ice Cream).

March 24, 2006

Contact and writer: Deb Banerjee (435) 797-8207

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