9-30 January 2015
Opening reception: Friday, 9 January, 6-8PM
Artist talk: Wednesday, 14 January, 5-7PM
2015 Eastern Oregon University Faculty Exhibition
The Nightingale Gallery marks the New Year with an exhibition of works by Eastern Oregon University’s accomplished and internationally recognized visual arts faculty.
The exhibit gives an in-depth look at the recent studio practices of professors Peter C. Johnson, Susan Murrell, Cory Peeke and Michael Sell. These four dedicated artists and educators have worked together to create a dynamic exhibition that serves as an example of the excellence and cooperation that defines the university’s art program.
Cory Peeke collects remnant imagery: the largely ignored and seemingly inconsequential bits of ephemera that once had a purpose, still have a presence, but are idle in disuse. He combines, layers, glues, tapes and re-contextualizes these bits and pieces of detritus in order to reincarnate and recharge them.
Through the process of collage, these snippets of the past combine to become something both fresh and familiar. Peeke’s most recent works explore the duality that is the transient, disposable nature of culture, as well as the need to create tradition and cultural continuity through the lens of the book and higher education.
Peter C. Johnson is presenting his most recent sculptural ceramic work, which explores both structural and material transformation. He uses the kiln as a vehicle for deconstruction. The porcelain grid systems in his sculptures begin as digital renderings and are meticulously fabricated by hand. These structures become the architecture over which to stretch a fluid skin that is allowed to warp or collapse the structure under the strain of the firing.
Susan Murrell’s installations and paintings – like geological, biological and cultural forces –simultaneously disintegrate and procreate, organizing themselves into complex systems. Within the context and tradition of abstraction, she engages this shift in visual knowledge.
Michael Sell’s most recent work is driven by his observation of a continued scattering and the belief that when technology is meant to simplify life and it doesn’t, what is left are not memories and hopes but information. Life is scattered, the art world is scattered and everything needs organizing.
(adapted from the gallery’s press materials)
INFORMATION
Nightingale Gallery
Loso Hall
Eastern Oregon University
1 University Boulevard
La Grande, Oregon 97850 USA
(541) 962-3584
Hours:
Monday-Friday, 11AM-4PM
Image:
a higher education (empty suits)
by Cory Peeke
11″x8″
mixed media
2014
Courtesy of the artist