“Panama Overlays, 2007-2008,”an exhibition of recent work by artist and art historian Geraldine Kiefer will be on view at Mary Baldwin University’s Hunt Gallery from February 16 – March 13, 2009. Residing in Winchester, Virginia, Kiefer is an assistant professor of art history at Shenandoah University, where she teaches drawing, modern art, history of photography, American Art, and contemporary art theory and criticism. Kiefer received a BA in art history and studio art from Kent State University; an MA in art history from Oberlin University; and a PhD in art history from Case Western Reserve University.
Since 2004 Kiefer has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout Virginia and in other states as well. Following two trips to Panama in 2007, Kiefer’s drawings, paintings, collages, assemblages, and “overlays” on photographs explore themes such as familiarity and unfamiliarity, the spiritual and cultural, and ultimately an intercontinental “flow” of space and place. She states the following about the work on view in Hunt Gallery: “This installation explores multiple dimensions of identifying and drawing – what I call tracing &ndash travel landscapes. It is premised on “identity: the power of place,” described by Anne Whiston Spirn as “a tapestry of woven contexts: enduring and ephemeral, local and global, related and unrelated, now and then, past and future.”
A reception for the artist will be held on Monday, February 16, from 4:30-6:00 p.m. in Hunt Gallery, which is located in the lower east wing of Hunt Hall on the Mary Baldwin University campus. The public is invited to attend. Hunt Gallery is dedicated to the exhibition of contemporary work in all media by regionally and nationally recognized artists. The gallery is open Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. during the College’s academic year.