Say goodbye to Victorian fashion, illuminated manuscripts, and geometric abstraction. In the Wriston Art Center galleries, starting November 9 at 5 p.m., the old art show is down, and the new show is up and open to the public.Kurt Dyrhaug, visiting artist and Associate Professor of Art at Lamar University, is giving a lecture at 6 p.m. followed by a reception. Both the lecture and the reception are open to the public. Dyrhaug received his BFA from the Minnesota College of Art and Design in printmaking and his master’s from the University of Minnesota in sculpture.
Frank Lewis, the Wriston gallery curator, said, “I first saw Kurt’s work in Boston and was interested in how his sculptures suggest traditional 19th-century implements and farm-like tools, and how they engaged also some of the lessons of minimalist art of the late 1960s and early ’70s.”
He added, “Kurt plays with both scale and surface texture as a way to engage viewers in questioning the expectations they have regarding sculpture in a gallery context.”
Dyrhaug’s work is displayed in the Kohler gallery, featuring sculptural mediums in cast metal, wood construction, and steel fabrication. His exhibit also features many drawings of his sculptures from different angles, in pastels and charcoal.
The other two galleries also feature work from professional artists. The Leech gallery displays “Fragments D’Architecture Antique,” featuring “selected images of Greek and Roman architectural elements from a 19th-century portfolio by French artists at the Académie des Beaux-Arts.
“Drawings of artifacts and famous sites such as the Acropolis and the Parthenon are part of this portfolio,” according to Rick Peterson, the Lawrence associate director/manager of news services.
The Hoffmaster gallery features drawings by Michael Hopkins, which are part of many museums’ permanent collections because of their fine detail and abstract nature. Many of the drawings are done on gray slate, which Lewis describes as a “somewhat unusual” medium. Sophomore intern Lynn Gilge said that the drawings are made “to look like x-rays … they’re pretty sweet.”
If you can’t make the opening, the current show runs from November 9 through December 16. The galleries are open Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday through Sunday from noon until 4 p.m.
However, Lewis believes that “listening to an artist discuss his or her work is a rare opportunity for Lawrence students to hear not only about how an artist developed and came to choose art making as a career but to also understand the process that motivates creation.”
Remember, art openings aren’t just for art major types — they hang around Wriston enough as it is. Go out, look good, and take advantage of professional art right on your own campus.