Faculty exhibition showcases rich diversity of EOU art program

In conjunction with the exhibit, artists will present a gallery talk about their work on Thursday, January 22 from 3-5 p.m. in Nightingale.

Cory Peeke | Nightingale Gallery Director
(541) 962-3584 | E-mail: cpeeke@eou.edu

30 December 2008

LA GRANDE, Ore. (EOU) - The biennial Eastern Oregon University Art Faculty Exhibition opens in Nightingale Gallery Friday, Jan. 9.

The exhibition features new work from the six nationally and internationally recognized artists who make up EOU's art department, offering a glimpse into their creative and scholarly work.

An opening reception will be held from 6-8 p.m. on Jan. 9 in the gallery located in Loso Hall. The show runs through Friday, Jan. 30. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The rich diversity of EOU's close-knit art program on display features the work of associate art professors Kathelene Galloway, Doug Kaigler and Jessica Plattner, and assistant art professors Peter C. Johnson, Kerry Loewen and Cory W. Peeke.

The integration of these artists' many diverse media and styles into the common space of Nightingale Gallery reveals visual relationships among the exhibitors, as well as illumination of the new directions taken by some of the area's most dynamic and noteworthy artists.

The exhibit is also representative of the long-standing strengths of the program's undergraduate curriculum with its focus on ceramics, painting, photography/video, printmaking and sculpture.

"Making art is for me about examining and translating my world," said Kathelene Galloway. "I am an artist who draws. Whether I am making prints, working in paint or writing I have a mark-making mentality. The mark is the residual of my action, which under the best conditions etches away a space for viewers, including myself, to think."

Galloway teaches printmaking and drawing at EOU. In this exhibit she will present mixed media works from her recent series "The Belted Galloways."

Johnson, who teaches courses in ceramics, said he "uses clay's natural relationship to artifact to explore our cultural dependencies and patterns of consumption." In mimicking artifacts, his work allows others to view themselves through a historical lens examining both "what we have inherited," and "what we are in the process of leaving behind."

Kaigler teaches sculpture at EOU and will present a number of caste bronze pieces in the exhibition. He noted that his "work continues to investigate and employ metaphor and myth as a means to uncover both personal and cultural story."

Loewen, who instructs both photography and video courses at EOU, will present a sculpture and video installation in the front room of Nightingale.

"In 2005 I moved from the violent gun culture of Oakland, Ca., to a very different kind of gun culture in rural eastern Oregon," Loewen said. "Many of the locals hunt for food while others simply hunt for trophies. This latter group is currently holding my interest."

Peeke, who teaches art history and is also the director of Nightingale Gallery, will present new works that continue his inquiry into depictions of the male nude. The "Wallflower" series is his latest work.

"The 'Wallflower' series investigates the dualities embodied in representations of the male form: the ideal and the familiar, the historical and the contemporary, the religious and the erotic, the decorative and the repulsive, the animal and the human, the serious and the amusing, and the naked and the nude," Peeke said.

Plattner teaches painting and drawing at EOU and will present a series of paintings completed since her return from Mexico on a Fulbright award.

"My portraits are inspired by informal interviews and conversations with the people I choose to paint," Plattner said. "The paintings are intuitively and conceptually driven, as I translate my understanding of each model's ideas into imagery and visual metaphor. I'm inspired by the details of each multifaceted personality, which leads me to develop more complex layers of paint. These visual and conceptual layers are unified by a highly saturated color palette, inspired by my experiences living and working in Mexico and Italy."

Just as these six artists have come together in the vibrant art program at EOU, they have worked together to create a dynamic exhibit, which explores the individual talents of each artist and the synergy created between them.

"The Nightingale Gallery is extremely pleased to present the work of these artists and scholars and to promote the vigorous creative and scholarly research that takes place everyday at EOU," Peeke said.

In conjunction with the exhibit the artists will present a gallery talk about their work on Thursday, January 22 from 3-5 p.m. in Nightingale. The gallery talk is free and open to the public.

Nightingale Gallery is located in Loso Hall, at the corner of 6th Street and "K" Avenue. For more information call the gallery at (541) 962-3667 or visit www.eou.edu/art/nightingale/exhibition0809/GallerySchedule2008-09.html

To request images of artwork for publication or to schedule an interview with the artists contact Peeke at cpeeke@eou.edu.

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