MATT HAMPTON | Reporter
The exhibition season opens at the Boyle Family Gallery Thursday evening with a professional display of art called “Infrastructure.”
The exhibition will feature the work of three artists: Roland Kulla from Chicago, Jacob Crook from Mississippi and local artist Erica Popp, who produce art connected by the central theme of portraying infrastructure and the industrial framework of our society.
Two of the artists, Kulla and Popp, will be present at the grand opening. Art Department Chair John Troy said this gives students an opportunity not only to view professional art, but to interact with professional artists.
“It will be a great time to have artists available to answer any questions or give further insight about the art,” Troy said.
The Boyle Family Gallery hosts about four exhibitions every year, and organizers work about a year in advance to set them up.
Troy said this exhibition came about when he met Kulla at another exhibition and later encountered Crook at a printmaking conference in Atlanta.
He said Kulla paints abstractions of bridges, while Crook makes mezzotint prints of utility infrastructure and Popp’s prints highlight industrial cityscapes.
“We are always on the lookout for professional art exhibitions that support the curriculum at Lindenwood,” said Troy.
In this case, the connection to the art curriculum was the emphasis on printmaking, which Lindenwood art students have recently had greater exposure to at the new printmaking studio in Studio West.
Seven large paintings will be featured at the exhibition, as well as “smaller, more intimate” intaglio and mezzotint prints by Popp and Crook.
The grand opening happens Thursday evening from 6 – 8 p.m. in the Boyle Family Gallery in the J. Scheidegger Center. Refreshments will be provided at the reception, which is free and open to the public.
