PRESS RELEASE -- March 9, 2008
MVNU gallery showcases spiritual art in African-American tradition
MOUNT VERNON, Ohio -- Mount Vernon Nazarene University’s Art Gallery will feature the installations of Robert E. Peppers throughout the month of March.
The show runs from March 3-29 with an opening reception on Sunday, March 9, from 2-4 p.m., in the art gallery, located within the R.R. Hodges Chapel/Fine Arts Center.
JUST ADDED: Artist's talk, Friday, March 28, Thorne Performance Hall, time TBD.
VIEW PHOTO GALLERY
Peppers, born in 1949 in McMinnville, Tenn., is a BFA and MFA graduate of the Ohio University School of Art. For a number of years he served as the assistant director of the Black Cultural Center at Purdue University. He is currently an associate professor in Ohio University’s School of Art. He has also taught drawing at Penland School of Crafts, and painting and collage in Ohio University’s “Art in Great Britain” program based at King's College in London, England.
Exhibits and Awards
His exhibition history includes showings at S.A.W. Contemporary Artist Centre in Canada, King’s College in England, The High Museum of Art in Atlanta and ten U.S. embassies around the world. Peppers received the Best of Show Awards in 2001’s “Beyond and Behind the Mask” exhibition at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, and 1997's 18th Annual Southwest Black Art Exhibition in Dallas Texas. He was also honored with the 1994 Award of Excellence in Exhibition 280: Works on Walls at the Huntington, W.Va., Museum of Art, and the 1996 Juror's Award for the Art and Social Justice Exhibition at Colfax Cultural Center in Indiana.
In the Artist's Words
"I am interested in exploring the cultural signifiers through art that connect to spiritual and African-American traditions. I’m intrigued with the notion that symbols which are designed to be haunting can be used to express abstract ideas such as dualism, good and evil, hope and despair,” said Peppers. “It is through symbols that the sacred is spoken of in secular terms.”
His installation, “A Quest for Sanctuary” was on display at African American Museum in Dallas, Texas, in the summer of 1999. Six of his paintings were featured at the 2002 Ohio Perspectives: Contemporary African American Artists exhibition at the Akron Art Museum.
Regular gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., weekends by appointment only. For more information, or contact (740) 392-6868, ext. 4341.
Mount Vernon Nazarene University is a private, four-year, intentionally Christian teaching university for traditional age students, graduate students and working adults. U.S. News & World Report ranks MVNU as a Best in the Midwest (Bachelor’s) institution for the third year in a row. With a 401-acre main campus in Mount Vernon, Ohio, and nine satellite Adult and Graduate Studies campuses throughout the state, MVNU emphasizes academic excellence, spiritual growth and service to community and church. MVNU offers an affordable education to more than 2,600 students from 27 states and six countries/U.S. territories.
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