The exhibition opens with a reception on Friday, January 11 from 6-8pm in the gallery located in Loso Hall.  The show will run through Friday, February 1. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 11am to 4pm.

The biennial Faculty Exhibition features work from the six nationally and internationally recognized artists who make up EOU’s art department and offers a collective view of their recent creative endeavors. The integration of the each artist’s body of work into the communal space of the Nightingale Gallery allows viewers to explore visual relationships amongst the artists as well as consider the newest trends in the work of some of this area’s most dynamic and respected artists.

The six artists with works on exhibit are Professor of sculpture, Doug Kaigler; Associate Professor and Director of the Nightingale Gallery, Cory Peeke; Associate Professor of painting, Jessica Plattner; Assistant Professor of printmaking, Susan Murrell; Assistant Professor of photography, Michael Sell and Visiting Assistant Professor of ceramics Jess Riva Cooper.

Doug Kaigler will present some of his most recent sculptural works which both feature and explore the elemental materials of wood, stone and water. Cory Peeke and Jessica Plattner will each present some of their most recent collage works. Peeke’s works feature found vintage photography which through the process of collage combines with other elements to become something both fresh and familiar. Plattner’s collages depict her infant daughter in a variety of surreal settings and act as a meditation on the magical possibilities of childhood. Susan Murrell will exhibit a selection of prints made during her summer residency at the Crow Shadow Institute. The photographic portraits that Mike Sell has on view are part of his larger investigation into fictional and real selves and how the Internet enables users to fictionalize themselves in a public manner. And visiting artist Jess Riva Cooper, who is filling in for Peter Johnson while he is on sabbatical, will present a selection of her newest ceramic sculpture inspired by the literature of Yiddish folklore, science fiction, and magical realism.

“Just as we six artists have come together to create a vibrant Art program at Eastern Oregon University we have worked together to create a dynamic exhibition which explores the individual talents of each as well as the collaborative nature inherent in our close knit program,” said Cory Peeke, Nightingale Gallery Director.

For more on each individual artist and their work please visit the EOU Art program faculty webpage: http://www.eou.edu/art/faculty/.

In conjunction with the exhibit the artists will present a gallery talk about their work on Thursday, January 24 from 5-7 p.m. in Nightingale Gallery. The talk is free and open to the public.

The Nightingale Gallery is located in Loso Hall on the campus of Eastern Oregon University in La Grande, OR.  Gallery hours are Monday-Friday 11AM-4PM.  For more information please visit our website: http://www.eou.edu/art/nightingale-gallery/ or follow us on Facebook.

This year’s Featured Artist is Linda Peterson. Peterson grew up in Burns and has drawn and painted from a very young age. She attended Eastern Oregon University where she majored in Education with Art as a secondary degree and taught for many years before becoming an Artist-in-Education.

Peterson along with Jan Clark, Sue Orlaske and Denise Elizabeth Stone form the Batik Convergence group. The group is dedicated to exploring batik watercolor which is a method of painting with watercolors on handmade papers using beeswax to create a resist for the paint. Peterson, both individually and as a member of the group, has exhibited widely and won numerous awards for her painting including Best of Show at the 3rd annual Union County Arts and Culture Center exhibit.  Peterson has generously donated one of her signature batik watercolors to be this year’s main raffle piece.

“Linda is an extremely productive and generous artist who has participated in Season’s Faire since its inception,” said Cory Peeke, Vice Chair of the Arts Commission and Director of the Nightingale Gallery. Linda’s playful work “Curtain Time” is sure to be a hit with the auction attendees.

The other participating artists have each donated a piece of their work, which will be auctioned to the public, beginning at 7:30 pm.  The auction pieces may be previewed from 6:30 to 7:30 pm in the Loso Hall lobby outside the Nightingale Gallery.

Hors d’oeuvres and exquisite desserts created by local culinary experts will be served throughout the evening.  There will be a no-host wine bar as well as coffee and punch available.

Funds raised from this event benefit the annual Arts for All festival, a children’s day of hands-on art experiences offered at no cost.  Children can experiment with painting, printmaking, pottery, music, weaving, theater and many other types of art.  Held the third weekend in April, Friday is reserved for children with special needs while Saturday is open to everyone.  It is estimated that as many as 500 children participate each year.

Tickets are $15 if purchased in advance or $20 at the door. Advance tickets may be purchased at Sunflower Books, Mitre’s Touch Art Gallery and the EOU Bookstore or by calling Minnie Tucker at 962-1352, Ext. 201.

Questions may be addressed to Minnie Tucker, 962-1352, Ext. 201, e-mail mtucker@cityoflagrande.org.

For more information on the conference, see https://northwest.spenational.org/conference. The photographs from the project and accompanying stories and testimonials can be found here: http://michael-sell.com/ufck/Home.html

The work ranges from sculpture and collage to oil painting and photography, and demonstrates the EOU Art Department’s mission to “actively contribute to the aesthetic and conceptual dialogue that is visual art.”

Participating in the show are:

•Peter C. Johnson, associate professor of ceramics;
•Doug Kaigler, professor of sculpture;
•Susan Murrell, assistant professor of printmaking and drawing;
•Cory Peeke, associate professor of art history and gallery director;
•Jessica Plattner, associate professor of painting and drawing;
•Jessica Riva Cooper, visiting assistant professor of ceramics;
•Michael Sell, assistant professor of photography.

The exhibit will be on display through Dec. 7 on both floors of North Santiam Hall, which is open from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Images of the exhibit are below. For more information, contact LBCC Gallery Coordinator Rich Bergeman bergemr@linnbenton.edu.

Complete Run Turok, Dinosaur Hunter (#1-#12, July’93-June’94)

NEW ORLEANS – Heriard-Cimino Gallery presents Between the Pages, mixed sculptures by Aaron McNamee. This Opening is in conjunction with Whitney White Linen Night and will be on view August 4 through September 24, 2012. A reception to meet the artist will be held on Saturday, August 4th, from 6 until 9 p.m.  The public is invited.  Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 until 5, or by appointment.

This exhibition could not be more timely! Aaron McNamee presents one entire and complete year of the Times-Picayune daily newspaper, presented month by month in individual panels – a premonition perhaps of things to come. The New Orleans newspaper as we have known it, first established one hundred seventy-five years ago, has now become extinct – the morning ritual of New Orleanians gone, as well as the artist’s performative daily ritual of utilizing the city’s daily newspaper to create his sculptures.

About the Exhibition:  The printed words and images of newspapers, magazines, and comic books is a primary component in McNamee’s work.  His fastidious building of his sculptures page by page, leaf by leaf, paper and glue, becomes blurred, denying any specific information of content. The colors and words intermingle, bleeding through layer upon layer. The result, a painting without paint. McNamee utilizes the New Orleans Times-Picayune, complete years of American Rifleman, Mother Earth News, Road and Track, Smithsonian and The Incredible Hulk, Legends of the DC Universe, and Professor Xavier and the X-Men.

The labored repetition of aligning and gluing each piece of paper seems to be a kind of meditation. The viewer experiences the alchemical result, the transmutation of the familiar into the sublime.

Aaron McNamee received his undergraduate degree from Eastern Oregon University and his M.F.A. from University of New Orleans. Since his moving to New Orleans five years ago, the artist has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions. This is his first solo exhibition at Heriard-Cimino Gallery. The artist lives and works in New Orleans, LA.

Heriard-Cimino Gallery website:

http://www.heriardcimino.com/current_x/cx1.html

The exhibition opens Friday, October 5 with a reception for the artist from 6-8pm in the gallery located in Loso Hall.  The show will run through Friday, October 26. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 11am to 4pm.

Stone features a collection of Don Gray’s works in both painting and drawing. His depictions of rocks and sky can be seen as metaphors of a larger reality, a reality beyond what we can observe.

“Indigenous peoples around the world think of the entire earth as a living organism.  Modern science increasingly corroborates that intuitive notion” explains Gray.  “It occurred to me that the only reason we think of a rock as inanimate is because its lifespan is unimaginably longer than our own. I sensed the life in these stones as metaphors of the living earth.”

Gray’s exhibit investigates the extraordinary in the ordinary. The multi-panel works make it necessary for viewer to experience the pieces incrementally and cumulatively, building an intrinsic sense of time into the work. The images are at once both vibrant and quiet, they straddle the line between representation and abstraction, and search for meaning in the most basic elements of our natural world.

Gray’s exhibition in the Nightingale coincides with the unveiling of his recently completed mural for EOU’s Inlow Hall. The mural presents portraits of 36 individuals who, as students, faculty or administrators, have had made their mark on EOU’s 83 year history. The official unveiling of the mural will take place on October 12 at 1PM in the Inlow Hall Welcome Center.

Don Gray grew up in rural Oregon and started drawing and painting at a young age. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Eastern Oregon University in 1970. Gray has painted large murals all over the U.S., illustrated books, taught workshops, won numerous awards and exhibited his work in many galleries and museums. In 2007 he began an online journal, www.dailyartwest.com, where he posts small daily paintings and commentary. His work is included in the permanent collections of the State of Oregon, The Hallie Ford Museum, The University of Washington Medical Center, the Frye Art Museum, the Grande Ronde Regional Medical Clinic, and numerous other collections both public and private.

The Nightingale Gallery is located in Loso Hall on the campus of Eastern Oregon University in La Grande, OR.  Gallery hours are Monday-Friday 11AM-4PM.  For more information please visit our website: http://www.eou.edu/art/nightingale-gallery/ or follow us on Facebook.

Jess will present a talk about her work at 6pm on Wednesday, September 26 in Zabel Hall room 101 (the large lecture hall). The public is welcome and encouraged to attend.

If you are in the Spokane area this October be sure to check out her work in the exhibit “Archie Bray at the Kolva-Sullivan Gallery”, October 5–31, 2012, Opening Reception: Friday, October 5

You can also check out her website here: http://jessrivacooper.com/

For me, these three paintings exist as a narrative of my higher education experience.  Diminished represents the emotion of feeling stationary and hopeless.  Suspended depicts the stage of searching freely and the guise of persuasion, and To Play in the Evening illustrates wonder and contentment.  I am developing an understanding of these stages as I make choices regarding my education.  This work acts to continuously remind myself not to be consumed by stages in this cycle.

To Play in the Evening  acrylic on canvas 12”x15”

Suspended  acrylic on canvas 12”x15”

Flounder and the Soul  steel, rubber and oil on paper 16″ x 10″ x 3″

Can you make yourself happier just by smiling? What if you could get rid of a headache or think more clearly just by altering the look on your face?

This body of work started with my ideas of imaginary body systems that would be able to alter a person’s character or influence personality. Systems that could be added or removed to make one better able to handle stress, make decisions or speak a foreign language. A system that could change the way a person interacts with others, or compatible systems that would allow people to understand each other better. The majority of this work focuses on the face, and the way that facial expressions might alter a person, physiologically and emotionally. These drawings are attempts to visualize such systems.

As I imagined new systems of the body, I also tried to rethink my way of drawing.  Formal aspects became my main focus, such as breaking up the traditional square or rectangle, creating free form wall drawings and experimenting with non-traditional drawing mediums such as wire. The wire allowed me to explore my obsession with line yet push myself to use it differently, underlining the relationship between sculpture and drawing in my work. I began to use the wall as the picture plane, cutting the paper and extending the drawn line onto the wall itself.  These formal investigations have further informed my conceptual base and continue to inspire new work.

Perch 1 mixed media

Hunting Ground mixed media

Nest mixed media