A wall full of computerized wooden pincers squeezing plastic squeakers. A powerful waterfall in oil bursting from its canvas. Surreal portraits displayed on a plasma screen. Clay heads with tongues out atop thin metal chairs. A translucent vase rendered in steel, nylon, aluminum, and wood. An undulating wall construction in bright white vinyl. A photograph of a war veteran in his den whose face tells the story of his service.

These are only a few of the ways the fine arts faculty at Indiana University Bloomington practice their profession. Founded in 1895, the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts today has a faculty of 52 artists and art historians and a highly ranked MFA program. Artist-teachers at the school create works in areas ranging from painting and sculpture to digital art and graphic design.

Dozens of works by the campus’s studio arts faculty are currently showing in Bloomington Biennial 2005. The exhibit is on view in the Indiana University Art Museum’s Special Exhibitions and Hexagon Galleries through May 8.

This year’s show features the work of six emeriti faculty including Rudy Pozzatti, a major contributor to the development of modern printmaking in the United States who built IU Bloomington’s printmaking program.

Current faculty-artist works include pieces returning home after exhibitions further away, such as sculptures from Georgia Strange’s recent show in New York City and a painting from Barry Gealt’s solo exhibition in Köln, Germany. The biennial also offers a chance to greet newcomers to the IU Bloomington fine arts faculty including painter Caleb Weintraub, whose paintings featuring children “address a culture that has lost its ability to be scandalized,” and sculptor Galo Moncayo, a creator of playful electronic sculptures that provoke us to look at the everyday anew.

Digital artist Leslie Sharpe, also new to the faculty, contributes an interactive installation—visitors lie down on a circular platform dotted with cushions, then view Sharpe’s digital video on small screens hanging from the ceiling.

Nanette Brewer, the Lucienne M. Glaubinger Curator of Works on Paper at the IU Art Museum, says the breadth of pieces in this year’s show is remarkable. “As the organizing curator of these faculty biennials since 1988, I have seen a lot of new directions in contemporary art. This year’s exhibition offers the widest range of media that I’ve ever seen in a faculty biennial, from representational painting to interactive video installation,” says Brewer. “The diversity of styles and ideas is a tribute to the Hope School of Fine Art’s long history and its national reputation.”

The museum is hosting special events in connection with the biennial including a tour of faculty studios and several noon talks by artists about their works. For more information on the Bloomington Biennial 2005 and the IU Art Museum’s permanent collections, visit www.iub.edu/~iuam.

For more on the artists and faculty of IU Bloomington’s Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts, see www.fa.indiana.edu/.