February 13 - March 27, 2012
- Reception: February 16, 6-8 p.m., Gallery Lounge, gallery talk by Kenneth Hall at 7 p.m.
- Music by the Urbana High School Jazz Band
- February 16, additional lecture by Hall in the gallery, 1:15pm
- View Kenneth Hall, "For Arts Sake"
Recognizable figures from famous paintings in art history take on new meaning in Iowa artist's Kenneth Hall's paintings, to be featured in a Parkland Art Gallery exhibit opening Monday, February 13.
"Fragments: Recent Paintings by Kenneth Hall" will run in the gallery through Tuesday, March 27. An artist reception takes place from 6-8 p.m. on Thursday, February 16, with gallery talk by Hall at 7 p.m. and music by the Urbana High School Jazz Band. Hall will provide an additional lecture in the gallery earlier on February 16, at 1:15 p.m.
An assistant professor at the University of Northern Iowa in Painting and Drawing, Hall received a BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design in 2004 and an MFA from Miami University in 2007. His paintings combine realism with gestural forms to give new meaning to imagery that sometimes include
recognizable figures from famous paintings. Each painted surface reveals another space, and through swirling, smearing, and pixilation of the media, Hall manipulates each image so that there is a struggle to clearly see what is in the forefront of the picture plane.
"The painting is a place of construction and demolition; I sift through fragmented remains of imagery for things that I can salvage," Hall said in an artist statement. "Forms are pierced, fractured, inflated, spun, shaken, morphed, and spliced together as I rearrange them in this visual container. Source imagery comes from a multitude of places like nature video-documentaries, sketchbook doodles, and objects like toy dinosaurs, flowers, or cicada shells."
Image: Kenneth Hall, Catastrophic, oil on panel, 48" x 42", 2010