Five artists featured in exhibition at Fredonia’s Marion Art Gallery

Photographs, ceramic sculpture, drawings and a mixed media installation by five artists will be on display beginning Feb. 27 in a new exhibition at the Cathy and Jesse Marion Art Gallery.

Jason Briggs' "Cherry"

Linda Cordell's "Dissimulate"

Lorrie Fredette's "Implementation of Adaption"

Chris Walker's "Civil Twilight: North of Mt. Pulaski, Ill."

“These Are a Few of My Favorite Things” will open with a reception on Friday, Feb. 27 at 7 p.m. The exhibition features works by Jason Briggs, Linda Cordell, Fotini Galanes, Lorrie Fredette and Chris Walker.

In addition to the exhibition, Fredette will present an illustrated lecture on Thursday, Feb. 26 at 8:30 p.m. in McEwen Hall Room 209 and Galanes will conduct a walk-in drawing workshop entitled, “Mark Making,” on Saturday, Feb. 28 from 1 to 4 p.m. in the Marion Art Gallery. In the informal workshop, participants will experience the importance of how people see and what interests people through color and textures. By mark making participants will document what they see in one-inch squares for one, five and 10 minutes. The exhibition, reception and programs are free and open to the public.

Briggs, of Watertown, Tenn., creates ceramic works. He was featured recently in Ceramics Art & Perception (Issue No. 79, “Not So Private Parts”) and his work has recently been included in the exhibitions “Corporeal Manifestations” at the Mutter Museum and “The Hermaphrodites” at the Wexler Gallery, both in Philadelphia, Pa., and “Transcending the Figure” in Athens, Ohio.

“I am searching for a fresh perspective,” Briggs said of his art. “I strive to create an object I’ve never quite seen before, one whose inherent mystery and intrigue quietly insists upon viewer interaction – an object begging to be explored and examined in much the same way a child investigates the world: with wonder, curiosity and also trepidation.”

Cordell is an instructor in ceramics and 3D design at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. She has been an artist in residence at the Clay Studio in Philadelphia and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wis.

Her work has been exhibited in the Cheongju International Craft Biennale at the National Cheongju Museum, Korea; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; the Nancy Margolis and Garth Clark Galleries, New York, N.Y.; the Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, Mass.; and the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse.

Fredette creates site-specific large-scale works that examine “beauty, harmony and comfort to comprehend the incomprehensible aspects of infection, pandemic and plague.”

Her pieces have been exhibited nationally and internationally, including solo and group exhibitions in the United States and Europe. Among the exhibition venues are: Cynthia-Reeves Project, Brattleboro, Vt.; Art Southampton, Southampton, N.Y.; Seton Hall University; the Bank of America Headquarters in Charlotte, N.C.; Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, Mass.; and Jyväskylä Art Museum in Jyväskylä, Finland. Fredette holds a B.F.A. degree in sculpture from the Herron School of Art/Indiana University.

Galanes, a Buffalo-based artist, studied illustration at Pratt Art Institute. Her illustrations have appeared in various publications and her murals can be seen in health care facilities throughout Western New York. She has exhibited her graphite on clayboard drawings and installations at the Albright Knox Art Gallery and Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo and at the Castellani Art Museum in Niagara Falls, to name a few. Galanes’ extemporaneous drawings “explore the concrete visual form of disgust and delight in abstraction.”

Walker teaches photography at Loyola University in Baltimore, Md., and is a commercial and fine arts photographer. Among the publications that have featured his photography are The New York Times and Scientific America. In 2000, Walker and two colleagues from The Toledo Blade were finalists for a Pulitzer Prize. The exhibition features seven black and white photographs from Walker’s “Civil Twilight” series, which examine 19th century grain elevators as icons of socioeconomic evolution in rural America.

“These Are a Few of My Favorite Things,” which was curated by Tina Hastings, runs through April 8. Gallery hours are noon to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Thursday; noon to 6 p.m., Friday and Saturday; and noon to 4 p.m. on Sunday. The gallery is closed on Mondays and will be closed from March 16 through 22 for the campus spring break.

The exhibition and related programs are funded by the Fredonia College Foundation’s Cathy and Jesse Marion Endowment Fund, the Carl J. Nordell Art Gallery Endowment and the Department of Visual Arts and New Media.