NEWS RELEASE
February 8, 2013 Contact: Stephanie Thomas, 542-4429
The Annual CBC Art Faculty Exhibition opens on Tuesday, February 19 in the Esvelt Gallery on the Columbia Basin College Pasco campus. This annual show offers an opportunity to see new work from the 10 regional and nationally recognized artists who make up CBC’s Art department and offers attendees a glimpse into their creative work. This group show will feature a variety of media including painting, ceramics, sculpture, drawings, photography, and approaches to art that range from realistic to abstract to non-representational. The public is also invited to attend the opening reception on Thursday, February 21 at 7 p.m. in the Esvelt Gallery. Attendees will have a chance to meet the art faculty and discuss with them the featured work at the exhibition.
The recurrent themes at this show include social issues, cultural humor, formal and conceptual concerns, and abstract representations of local landscapes. As a whole, the exhibition reveals the diverse points of view and forms of expression present in CBC’s small but highly respected art program.
The exhibition will feature work from the following full time artists: James Craig, associate professor of sculpture; Tracy Petre, associate professor of painting; and Greg Pierce, associate professor of ceramics. Additional exhibitors include members of the adjunct faculty: Karen Starkey, Ted Neth, Zachary Mazur, Howard Barlow, Victoria Gravenslund, Mary Dryburgh, and the department’s emeritus professor Morse Clary.
James Craig, associate professor of sculpture, has twice won the “Best in Show” award at the Central Washington Artists Exhibition in Yakima. For CBC’s show, he will be exhibiting three works: two wall pieces of acrylic on paper fiber and a wood and basalt rock sculpture. Mr. Craig’s art expresses his perspective on rural existence which was shaped from living in Saskatchewan and Missoula, Montana, where he received his MFA.
Tracy Petre, who obtained her MFA in painting and drawing at the University of Cincinnati, will be showing three gouache paintings (a form of opaque water color). One work of art, titled “Heart’s Content,” explores the area of health and habits through the juxtaposition of imagery linked to our current concerns about food, diet, and mortality. Ms. Petre has recently held one person exhibits in Seattle, Ellensburg, and Wenatchee.
Greg Pierce, a graduate with his MFA from San Diego State University, is the department’s associate professor of ceramics and will have three of his abstract clay sculptures in the exhibition. His work emulates the geological processes of landscape formation with an aim of condensing personal viewpoints, memories, and symbols of human detritus into it.
For more information, visit
columbiabasin.edu.