Gallery to Show Architectural Paintings of Morgan Craig

Published 11.12.2012

News
Events
The Gallery at Penn College

The Gallery at Penn College, on the third floor of Pennsylvania College of Technology’s Madigan Library, will host “All of Nowhere: Explorations in Architecture and Identity” from Nov. 15 to Dec. 16. The exhibit features the paintings of Morgan Craig.

Craig believes architectural structures act both as repositories and vehicles for memory by profoundly influencing culture and identity and by providing a tangible framework through which facets of a society can be expressed.



“The Golden Age of Smoke and Mirrors,” 2008, oil on linen, 72 inches by 96 inchesConsequently, he was inspired to build a body of work dealing with how identity is influenced by the types of architecture present in a given landscape. His work takes into account the forgotten factory, asylum or prison.

“Neglected, ignored or often instilling rancor in the public, these buildings paradoxically offer one of the most scintillating of subject matter: how beautiful the bitter pill,” he said. “My work is not merely a method of documentation, but a visual forum where one may question what it is about these edifices that instills such emotion in people.

“While evidence of these past or present-day difficulties may not be pleasant, I feel it imperative that societies realize their impact on the past, present and future concepts of identity and history,” he continued.

Craig, who lives and works in Philadelphia, received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and a teaching certificate from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University, as well as a Master of Fine Arts in painting from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

He has exhibited nationally and internationally and has received numerous awards, including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant, and a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship.

Craig has been an invited artist in residence at Atelje Stundars in Finland, the MacDowell Colony, and Bemis Center for the Contemporary Arts, and he was a visiting artist at the Australian National University. He was granted a fellowship at the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris for the summer of 2012.

The gallery will host a Meet the Artist Reception on Nov. 15 from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., with a gallery talk at 5:30. The gallery is open Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m.; Tuesday and Thursday, 2 to 7 p.m.; and Wednesday and Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (closed Saturday and Monday). The gallery will be closed Nov. 21-25.

For more about the exhibit and The Gallery at Penn College, email or call 570-320-2445.

For more about the college, email the Admissions Office or call toll-free 800-367-9222.