Clyde H. Wells Fine Arts Gallery Presents
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, August 25, 2017
STEPHENVILLE, Texas—The Clyde H. Wells Fine Arts Gallery at Tarleton State University kicks off its 2017-18 season with Valerie Powell’s solo exhibition, Civil Wars.
On display from Aug. 28 until Sept. 22, the exhibit features new drawings and sculptures as well as a site-specific wall installation—containing imagery and forms inspired by conflict—created specifically for the gallery.
The free exhibition is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays.
Continuing to investigate the complexities of the human condition, Powell’s new work reflects on memories of personal tension and internal conflict as well as growing national and global unrest while maintaining a playful artifice.
Her art making practice centers around Shrinky Dinks®—a sort of magical shrinkable plastic with the ability to evolve from a thin two-dimensional sheet into a three-dimensional object that takes up space when heated. This plastic material contorts, shrinks, melts and folds into itself, only to rebound and emerge as something new and stronger, allowing Powell to explore what it means to be human, experience stress and recover.
Powell earned her master’s of fine arts degree from Washington State University and a master’s and bachelor’s of fine arts from Stephen F. Austin State University. Her work has been widely exhibited across the U.S. and abroad at venues that include Lawndale Art Center in Houston; Blackfish Gallery in Portland, Ore.; The Ogden Museum of New Orleans; Gallery 50 in Toronto, Canada; The Can Serrat International Art Centre in El Bruc, Spain; and La Porte Peinte Centre for the Arts in Noyers sur Serein, France.
She resides in Huntsville, Texas, where she teaches and coordinates Workshop in Art Studio + History (WASH), an interdisciplinary foundations program at Sam Houston State University.
Tarleton, celebrating 100 years as founding member of The Texas A&M University System, provides a student-focused, value-driven educational experience marked by academic innovation and exemplary service, and dedicated to transforming students into tomorrow’s professional leaders. As a member of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) with campuses in Stephenville, Fort Worth, Waco, Midlothian and online, Tarleton engages with its communities to provide real-world learning experiences and to address societal needs while maintaining its core values of tradition, integrity, civility, leadership, excellence and service.
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Contact: Lori LaRue – Fine Arts Center Operations Manager
254-968-9639
[email protected]
