The Art of Isolation: Christina Vogel’s paintings examine people and ‘the spaces in between’

Christina Renfer Vogel might be described as the Edward Hopper of the social media age.

In his paintings, Hopper’s humans are glimpsed through brightly lit offices and diners surrounded by the darkness of night; Vogel freeze-frames yearning loners and party-goers who literally vanish into thin air because no one will speak to them. Yet she captures the same kind of haunting loneliness that Hopper seared into the canvas more than 80 years ago.

The University Art Gallery at the University of the South in Sewanee is showing an exhibit of Vogel’s works called “Encounters.” The walk into the gallery, tucked into the University of the South’s Hogswart-like neo-Gothic campus, puts a visitor in the mindset for Vogel’s works.

Currently an assistant professor of art at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Vogel explains in her UTC bio that her works are “rooted in human interaction and my role as an observer, on the outside looking in. I’m interested in the relationships between figures, the proximity of their bodies, and the spaces in between.

“In my work, I seek to communicate a sense of isolation or interaction, longing or discomfort,” she says.

The first painting visitors see in “Encounters” is “Beyond,” which shows a man staring at something just beyond the edge of the painting. Whatever it is casts a strange purple-ish glow onto his face. Observers can argue over the cryptic emotion on his face – awe, fear, elation?

When hanging the works, gallery Director Shelley MacLaren made a bold decision on how to display them.

“We chose not to place the titles Christina gave her paintings on the wall because we wanted viewers to have a chance to make up their own stories about what each work means,” MacLaren says. “One of our professors, Robert Wilson, brought his writing class here because he felt her work would inspire them. Each student will write a story based on what he or she sees in one of the paintings.”

Even without the titles next to the paintings, it’s easy to imagine that “Apart” is Vogel’s vision of a tragic cocktail party. She’s blotted out all the furniture and party guests with peach paint except for five. A man and a woman at least lucky enough to be able to chat with each other seem aware that the woman to their left is so alone and ignored, she suddenly realizes she is disappearing and the lower half of her body has vanished.

At the outer rim of the painting, a shy woman gazes intently – adoringly? – at an oblivious man in the distance whose back is to her.

The women in “Fancy Ladies” are not particularly fancy, in fact, they look uncomfortable. As MacLaren jokes, “They don’t even look like women at a party you would want to join.”

But why? What it is about them that makes them seem menacing is one of the mysteries Vogel wants the viewer to solve.

“Standing on the edge, I observe interactions,” Vogel writes in the introduction to “Encounters.” “I seek to identify quiet moments within more complex situations These ordinary encounters invoke yearning, discomfort, uncertainty.”

Contact Lynda Edwards at ledwards@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6391.