WILSON, N.C. – Two new exhibitions, Gérard Lange: “Cartograph” and Jared Ragland: “Apropos,” will open in the Barton Art Galleries with a reception on Sunday, Nov. 14, from 2 to 4 p.m. Artists Gérard Lange and Jared Ragland will be present for the opening and provide artists’ talks at 3 p.m. This event is open to the public free of charge, and the community is invited to attend. The exhibition will run through December 8.
The Virginia Thompson Graves Gallery will provide the backdrop for the Gérard Lange: “Cartograph” imagery on view. “Works in this exhibition make use of map-like elements in a variety of forms and mediums, but all linked to notions of communicating ideas about the social landscape and mankind’s ecological impact on the earth,” shared Lange. “Beginning with excerpts from personal collage journals, I have branched out to making large-scale mixed media works displaying agricultural imagery.”
Throughout his professional career, Lange has also explored the physical impact that humans have on the environment. “Traditional photographs in the series depict microcosmic slices of the earth viewed from directly above, where manmade lines and impressions left in the ground offer evidence of a latent presence,” he added.
A photography professor in the Department of Art at Barton College since 2006, Lange earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art and Design, summa cum laude, at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Ga., a training that extended beyond photography into fine art drawing and sculpture. He completed his Master of Fine Arts degree in Photography from Tulane University and also participated in additional educational programs including Cinematography and Screen Writing Workshops at the Image Film & Video Center in Atlanta and the University of Georgia Cortona Program in Cortona, Italy.
Prior to his appointment at Barton College, Lange worked as a professional photographer in Atlanta, taught at Tulane University as an instructor and at Northern Michigan University as an assistant professor. He is represented by galleries in New Orleans, Athens, Ga., and New York. His work, in a variety of media, has been exhibited across the United States and internationally.
Ragland’s “Apropos” work, digital collage photography from his Smithsonian series, Godmonster, Journals, and Light Brigade portfolios, will be showcased in the Lula E. Rackley Gallery. “I believe my work is bound to my experience of growing up in the South, specifically to the unique tradition of storytelling and vernacular form that exists there,” shared Ragland. “While not always adhering to the traditional structure of narrative I seek nonetheless to open relationships between fragments of content and combine images to form loose associations and ad hoc metaphors that, while tangential and ambiguously melancholic, are always engaged with social and cultural critique.”
Ragland, photo editor with National Geographic Books for the recently published “President’s Photographer: Fifty Years Inside the Oval Office,” is an adjunct faculty member at the Corcoran College of Art + Design in Washington, D.C., and a former White House photo editor.
Ragland’s work is represented by Honfleur Gallery in Washington, D.C. He earned his M.F.A. from Tulane University in New Orleans.
The Barton Art Galleries are open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and by appointment. For additional information, please contact Bonnie LoSchiavo in the Barton Art Galleries at 252-399-6477 or email: blloschiavo@barton.edu.
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Questions? Please contact Kathy Daughety, director of public relations, at 252-399-6529 or email: kdaughety@barton.edu.