A monoprint from Ed Paschke's Pharaoh Series

Event: Art Exhibitions at Illinois Wesleyan:
“PRINTS” by artist Ed Paschke in the Wakeley Gallery
and "Some Cities," recent ceramic installations, paintings and quilts by artist Lisa Marie Barber in the Merwin Gallery

Dates: Sept. 2-27, 2004 (galleries closed Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 6)

Gallery Hours:

Monday-Friday: 12-4 p.m.
Tuesday evening: 7-9 p.m.
Saturday, Sunday: 1-4 p.m.

Artist's Lecture and Reception: Thursday, Sept. 2
Artist's Lecture: Ed Paschke, 4-5 p.m.
Opening Reception: 5-6 p.m., in the galleries, immediately following the
lecture. (Reception is for both exhibitions)

Location: Merwin & Wakeley Galleries, Ames School of Art, 6 Ames Plaza West, Bloomington

Admission: All events are free and open to the public

Background: On display in the Wakeley Gallery will be a group of prints by Ed Paschke. Born and raised in Chicago, Paschke is an internationally recognized artist whose work is in museum collections throughout the United States and Europe. Art critics define his work as revealing a powerful interaction between humanity and technology that "is capable of so rapidly shaping perception at the most fundamental level."

In his most recent work, Paschke enlarges scale to a grand proportion and includes images of such as George Washington, Elvis Presley, and Mona Lisa.

As a child, Paschke became interested in animation and cartoons, which led him toward a career in art. While a student, Paschke’s interest leaned toward representational imagery, though he learned to paint based on the principles of abstraction and expressionism.

In 1961 Paschke received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the institute in 1970.

Between his graduate and undergraduate studies, Paschke traveled and worked a variety of jobs amassing experience that would later shape his artistic style. During a brief period in New York, he encountered Pop Art and began to incorporate elements of this style, using images from print media and other elements of popular culture. During the 1970s his work replaced images from the print media with those derived from the electronic media.

Artist Lisa Marie Barber, who has a passion for excess, sites her upbringing in a culturally Mexican-Catholic home as the inspiration for her artwork. She grew up in a house filled with brightly colored religious iconography and Latino folk art, which provided a lavish visual environment where ideas of décor arose from accumulation, arrangement and collection.

Barber's ceramic installations, quilts and paintings share a rich layering of color, shape and texture. In the artist's words, "These works strive to create world composed of multiple parts meant to be celebratory shrine-like collections." These various parts often take the shape of everyday objects--cars, planes, houses, flowers--which become the building blocks of the complex worlds she creates.

Originally from Tucson, Ariz., Barber received her MFA from the University of Texas at Austin in 1998. She currently serves as Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Wisconsin, Parkside.

Contact: For additional information, contact Jennifer Lapham, director of the Merwin & Wakeley Galleries, (309) 556-3391.