Marion Art Gallery to host exhibition of digital artwork

Interactive digital artwork will be featured when the Cathy and Jesse Marion Art Gallery hosts the exhibition “Near & Far: Sala Wong and Peter Williams” from March 4 through April 10.

The two-artist exhibition opens with a reception at on Friday, March 4, from 7 to 9 p.m. The Marion Art Gallery is located on the main level of Rockefeller Arts Center.

“Near and Far” consists of a selection of site-based digital, interactive and video artworks created by Wong and Williams between 2007 and 2015. Each piece in the show depicts the inevitability of change and the immensity of closeness.

The artists’ ongoing research into urban spaces and information culture explores how people recalibrate themselves to “globalized, conglomerate realities” and how the notion of “immediate surroundings” is changing in the age of augmented reality and locative media.

Wong and Williams frequently use participatory practice, involving members of the public in the production of source materials for their works, along with time-based digital technologies, interactivity and installation art to complicate the documentary form.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the artists will work with Department of Visual Arts and New Media students on a multichannel projection-based installation focusing on the communities of Fredonia and Dunkirk and the Fredonia campus. Wong and Williams will project the images on the exterior of Rockefeller Arts Center during the reception, weather permitting.

The artists will present a lecture about their work as part of the Visual Arts and New Media Department’s Visiting Artist Program on Thursday, March 3, at 8:30 p.m. in McEwen Hall Room 209.

On Friday March 4, at noon Wong and Williams will discuss the business of being an artist, including their experiences working internationally, at the Fredonia Technology Incubator’s Art and Business Luncheon series. The incubator is located at 214 Central Ave. in Dunkirk.

All programs are free and open to the public. However, those planning to attend the luncheon are asked to call the Fredonia Technology Incubator at 680-6009 to reserve a space.

An exhibition brochure is available free of charge by visiting the Gallery or contacting Director Barbara Räcker at 716-673-4897 or barbara.racker@fredonia.edu. Free group tours of the exhibition can also be scheduled by contacting Räcker.

Gallery hours are Tuesday through Thursday from noon to 4 p.m., Friday and Saturday from noon to 6 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. Funding for this exhibition and publication is provided by the Fredonia College Foundation’s Cathy and Jesse Marion Endowment Fund and Carnahan Jackson Humanities Fund.