Exhibit combines ceramics, video

  Monday, August 18, 2014 2:00 AM
  News

Pittsburg, KS

Pittsburg State University’s Art Department has opened its fall exhibition season with “Semiotic,” an exhibit of the work of ceramicist and new media artist Colby Parsons. The exhibit runs through Sept. 26.

Parsons’ exhibit features glazed stoneware on which he projects video loops.

Parsons marries tangible matter and projected light into a seamless tango so it becomes virtually impossible to decipher where his glazed stoneware ends and the images he is projecting onto them begin, according to Gallery Director and Department Chair Rhona Shand.

Parsons’s hand-built ceramic forms mimic the everyday shapes of commons scenes from his daily life, including a cast-iron skillet with eggs on a stove, a dining room table, a bicycle wheel and helmet and a lawn sprinkler. Onto those shapes, he projects video clips that brings each shape to life and gives it its own history.

Parsons received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Miami University in Ohio and a master of fine arts degree from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. He is currently an associate professor of ceramics at Texas Women’s University in Denton, Texas.

The artist will give a free public lecture about his art at 4 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 26, in 103 Porter Hall.

PSU’s University Gallery, located in Porter Hall, is open from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. Monday-Friday. Admission is free. For more information, call 620-235-4302.