The annual Juried Student Art Show at 换妻社区 will run from Monday, Nov. 27, to Friday, Dec. 8, in the De Pree Art Center and Gallery.
There will be a juror鈥檚 talk in advance of the exhibition, on Monday, Nov. 20, at 4 p.m. in Cook Auditorium of the De Pree Art Center and Gallery. There will be a closing reception on Friday, Dec. 8, from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
The public is invited to the exhibition, juror鈥檚 talk and closing reception, all of which will be in the gallery. Admission is free.
The exhibition is being dedicated in the memory of Billy Mayer, a long-time member of the art faculty who died unexpectedly at his home on Saturday, Nov. 11, at age 64. A professor of art, Mayer was head of the college鈥檚 sculpture and ceramic programs, and had taught at Hope since 1978.
Open to all students at Hope, the competitive exhibition is an annual fixture in the De Pree gallery. Each year, the Department of Art and Art History invites a recognized artist or curator to judge the student work.
This year鈥檚 guest juror, Malcolm Mobutu Smith, is an associate professor of ceramic art at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. He earned his MFA from the New York College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 1996, and studied at both the Kansas City Art Institute and Penn State University, where he received his BFA in ceramics in 1994. Smith鈥檚 professional activities involve workshops, lectures and residencies including visits to Haystack Mountain School of Craft, Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts and the Robert McNamara Foundation. His works are in numerous private and public collections including The Luise Ross Gallery (New York City), the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (Kansas City), FuLed International Ceramic Art Museum (Beijing, China) and Indiana State Museum.
Smith is guided by improvisations that merge form with graphic flatness. His clay work is inspired by the intersections of graffiti art and graphic structure, as well as formal relationships via comic books and playful organic abstraction via jazz. His works rely on wheel-thrown and hand-built elements 鈥� most commonly presented as abstractions of cups, bottles, and vases 鈥� as well as an interest in drawing and 3D printing,
The De Pree Art Center and Gallery is located at 275 Columbia Ave., between 10th and 13th streets. The gallery is open Mondays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sundays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.