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ESCANABA -- Bay College announces an exhibition, Grids & Pixelation: Visual Poetry by artists Carol Irving and Michael Friend. The exhibition will be on view in the Besse Gallery on the College's Escanaba campus from October 3-November 30. Also, mark your calendars and join us for an Artist Talk and Reception on October 5 at 2 pm ET. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.
Detroit born, Carol Irving moved to the Upper Peninsula at the age of 24. Before her move she had earned a degree in botany, lived in New Mexico and Oregon, and always had a love for weaving. After taking a weaving class, she began to explore weaving on her own.
Early on she took a workshop from master weaver, Peter Collingwood. This began her love of weft faced textiles and Shaft Switching. Over the many years, she has fine-tuned her craft into an art.
Her designs range from very contemporary and geometric to organic shapes and images. "I am committed to excellent craftsmanship so that my rugs are not only functional but pleasing to look at." Her work is striking when hung on the wall, visually bold from a distance and tactile in its intricate detail. Her works have won awards in juried art shows and collected by many throughout the U.S.
"After a thirty-five year career of teaching art and filmmaking in public schools, I realized my passion to become a producing artist," said Friend. "I had the time and opportunity to set up a studio to explore and define my style. I formulated a technique that draws on Seurat's pointillism, Van Gogh's rich use of color and my own familiarity with film animation. acrylic paint is my medium, and I have developed a optically complex painting format which is a form of pixilation. using gradual transitions of color change through the application of dots. I create my images by applying black dots to the entire canvas. A grid pattern forms the underlying structure as I concentrate on the interplay of color, pattern and form. Overlapping the dots with myriads of color give dimension to the image. I use color to act on the viewer with the same intensity as cold, heat, sound, and texture. The dots act as the catalyst to my creativity. My paintings are labor-intensive and completed with one brush."
Photo Caption: Somewhere in Time, Carol Irving.