Published: September 06, 2007 10:16 pm            

Rose exhibit to feature paintings, metal works by Midwest artists

More than 100 paintings and metal works by several Midwest artists, including three Wabash Valley residents, are featured in the first art exhibit of the academic year at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.

The Fall Art Exhibition, located throughout the first and second floor hallways of Moench Hall, is free and open to the public weekdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. A special artists’ opening reception is planned for 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday. Musical entertainment will be provided by guitarist Kade Puckett.

Mike Neary of Terre Haute and Amy MacLennan of West Terre Haute are among 11 members of the Midwest Paint Group that have works on display at Rose-Hulman. The group advocates a significant 21st-century movement vital to the continuation and development of new, visually intelligent and emotive works of perceptual art.

Recognized regionally and nationally, MPG artists use varied processes defined as post abstract figuration. This type of painting is built on configurations and conceptions that evolved out of the past great traditions of art and of 20th-century modernist painting. Emotive and expressive abstractions are at the core of the artists’ images. To be an MPG painter is a quest to becoming highly aware of nature’s complex beauty balanced against the nature of unifying human vision and deep emotion.

“Visitors to the exhibition will be impressed with the illusions of light and space seen in the paintings,” said Steve Letsinger, Rose-Hulman’s coordinator of arts programming and art curator. “The works are light-filled, skillfully created examples of contemporary painting. It is delightful to experience these paintings.”

Joining Neary and MacLennan as MPG artists with paintings on display are Jeremy Long and Megan Williamson, both of Chicago; Bob Brock of Lee’s Summit, Mo.; Glen Cebulash of Dayton, Ohio; William Foust of Shaker Heights, Ohio; Philip Hale of Wilmington, Ohio; Timothy King of Elgin, Ill.; Barbara Lea of Minneapolis; and Ron Weaver of New Harbor, Maine. Many artists in the group are visual art teachers at universities around the country.

The second part of the fall exhibition is metal works by Robert Watton, an artist from West Terre Haute and owner of the local Metal Madness/Artist Impressions of Life studio. Born in Hawaii, he has traveled throughout the world, learning about art and its many forms of media. Metal has always been Watton’s true artistic passion, because of its endless possibilities. He can design, draft, bend, shape, fabricate, weld, solder, sheer and roll any metal job that comes his way.

“Robert Watton’s works are meticulous and masterfully done. His subjects range from whimsical creations of flowers and faces in metal to full-sized wearable armor,” advised Letsinger. “Each piece in his exhibition shows the artist’s care in the execution of his original idea in cut, hammered, bent and shaped metal. His repousse’ pieces, an ancient method of shaping metal by careful hammering, show his mastery of the metal arts.”

A member of the Wabash Valley Arts Guild and Southern Indiana Arts Institute, Watton is also showing his work throughout Indiana and the Midwest, including the Crescent Hill Gallery, CANDLES Museum, Swope Art Gallery and Raven Art Gallery.

Guided tours of Rose-Hulman’s Fall Art Exhibit can be arranged by calling Letsinger at (812) 877-8452 or e-mailing Steve.Letsinger@rose-hulman.edu.

        

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