Props for Pictures, Art Exhibition - Opening Reception
EVENT: Props for Pictures, Art Exhibition - Opening Reception
ARTIST: Douglas Degges
VENUE: Minot State University, Flat Tail Press Gallery (Student Center)
DATE: Reception: Friday, Dec. 1, 2017, 12:30 p.m.
Lecture: Friday, Dec. 1, 2017, 12:00 p.m. – Aleshire Theatre
Exhibition: Dec. 1, 2017 - March 1, 2018
ADMISSION: Free
DESCRIPTION:
The Slow Image: An Antidote for Instant Internet Fever
Minot, ND
According to a forecast by InfoTrends, the world’s 7.5 billion people will take 1.2 trillion digital images in 2017. Billions of these images will zip around the internet, feeding a hunger that demands faster and faster image creation and consumption. As we adjust to the frenetic pace of hundreds of daily images appearing rapidly in the palms of our hands, we often forget how to appreciate slow visual experiences. Take a deep breath and enter the world of Douglas Degges’ “Props for Pictures,” featuring slow organic painted surfaces that build over time, providing needed rest for the eyes of an Instagrammed public.
On Friday, December 1, Minot is invited to view paintings that challenge our notions on what painting should be. In his exhibition “Props for Pictures,” Douglas Degges questions our rapid-fire, visual culture, and stretches us to find beauty in the simple painted surface.
Primarily a gallery dedicated to printmaking, The Flat Tail Press Gallery at Minot State University is stepping into new territory by exhibiting Degges’ paintings. Micah Bloom, director, shares, “So many of us are entranced by the glamor and the showiness of masterful technique in art. Nowhere is it more beguiling than in oil painting, where painstaking labor, spell-binding technique, and mysterious symbology pulls us into a nostalgic romance. Similarly, Degges also works in oil, but his painting tips this notion on its head with honest and humble surfaces.”
Bloom, an art professor at MSU, studied alongside Degges in graduate school at the University of Iowa, and as a fellow painter was struck by the way Degges approached a two-dimensional medium in a three-dimensional way. “When I saw Douglas’s paintings I was impressed by their object-ness, their materiality. They looked like chunks from the wall of an old apartment that had been water-damaged and painted hundreds of times, each time a bit sloppier than the last . . .like accretions of built up matter . . . both crude and elegant.”
Degges, currently based in Chicago, will be at Minot State for three days working with students and making a fine art print with Flat Tail Press. He comments on this featured series of paintings, “I’ve been working on this group of paintings for just over 7 years now, and it's the only part of my painting practice that has remained constant. They speak to my longstanding interest in the perception and valuation of hard work and technical skill.”
On Friday, December 1, Degges will deliver a lecture on his work at 12:00 p.m. in Aleshire Theater on the Minot State campus, and, immediately following at 12:30 p.m., will be at the opening reception of “Props for Pictures” in the Flat Tail Press Gallery (Student Center). This event is free and open to the public.
Douglas Degges bio
Originally from Shreveport, Louisiana, Douglas Degges graduated with a BA from Rhodes College in 2009 and a MFA from the University of Iowa in 2012. His work has been exhibited in various group and solo exhibitions throughout the United States. Most recently his work was exhibited at The Shed Space in Brooklyn, NY, Zeitgeist Gallery in Nashville, TN, Fluorescent Gallery in Knoxville, TN, The Factory in Seattle, WA, Terrault Contemporary in Baltimore, MD, and the Atlanta Contemporary in Atlanta, GA. He currently teaches at North Central College in Naperville, IL and has upcoming exhibitions at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, Loveland Artspace in Loveland, CO, and the University of Vermont in Burlington, VT.
Flat Tail Press
http://flattailpress.weebly.com/
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For more information contact:
Micah Bloom
micah.bloom@minotstateu.edu
About Minot State University
Minot State University is a public university dedicated to excellence in education, scholarship, and community engagement achieved through
rigorous academic experiences, active learning environments, commitment to public service, and a vibrant campus life.
| Published: 11/30/17 |
