The Olin Art Gallery, on the campus of Washington & Jefferson College, supports the educational mission of the College through the exhibition of original works by local, regional, and national artists. By exhibiting a wide variety of art forms and styles, the Olin Art Gallery seeks to stimulate the creation and understanding of contemporary art for the benefit of Washington & Jefferson College and the larger community.
Opened in 1982, the Olin Art Gallery supports the display of both three-dimensional and hanging works in its 1,900-square-foot exhibition space. In recent years the Gallery has housed works by such nationally and internationally acclaimed artists as Malcolm and Evans Parcell, Nat Youngblood, and David Sengel. The Gallery annually hosts exhibitions across all artistic media, attracting entries by award-winning artists from across the country and abroad. Several exhibitions are installed each year, including an exhibition of student work at the end of spring term. From time to time, exhibitions will be staged in conjunction with W&J Arts Series performances, as well as special collaborations with various academic departments and programs. Each show includes an opening reception—an opportunity to meet the exhibiting artists and to interact with faculty members and other art students. In addition, the artists are frequently invited to give slide lectures or gallery talks.
All events and exhibitions are free and open to the public.
Olin Art Gallery
285 E. Wheeling St.
Washington, PA 15301
Open Daily 12noon-7pm
2011-12 Exhibition Schedule
Patrick Schmidt
WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE: New Work
September 16-October 9, 2011
Opening Reception and Artist Talk: Friday, September 16, 7-9pm
Patrick Schmidt creates vibrant, decorative paintings that “cross-pollinate" with sculpture, printmaking, craft and textiles. The results are artistic hybrids that playfully modify the traditional format of painting in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. At it’s boldest, Schmidt’s work literally moves off the gallery walls, reaching out into architectural space, ceilings and floors in unexpected ways.
Patrick Schmidt is an Associate Professor at Washington & Jefferson College, Washington, PA. His exhibition record includes solo and group shows in Kansas City, MO; St. Paul, MN; Tallahassee, FL; Pittsburgh, PA; Santa Monica, CA; Washington, DC; Chicago, IL; and New York City, NY. Schmidt’s paintings have been featured three times in New American Paintings, and in New Art International.
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Betsy Timmer
INNER INVESTIGATIONS
October 21-December 4, 2011
Opening Reception and Artist Talk: Friday, October 21, 7-9pm
Closed during Thanksgiving break, November 23-27
Using armatures, fabric, felt and found objects, Betsy Timmer creates figurative sculptures that become connected to the viewer as sympathetic and empathetic characters. These characters feel worn out, weighted down, torn and overstuffed. Fueled by observation of women’s endless ‘to-do’ lists, Timmer’s sculptures explore demands and expectations of a non-stop, bigger, better, faster, more culture. The artist investigates anxiety attacks, negative self-image and crumbling relationships as the physical and mental manifestations of this unsustainable, frenzied pace.
Betsy Timmer lives and works in Lawrence, Kansas. She received her MFA from the University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS and her BFA from Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI.
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Michelle Acuff
SURROGATE
February 3-26, 2012
Opening Reception and Artist Talk: Friday, February 3, 7-9pm
As a sculptor and installation artist, Michelle Acuff implicates viewers in a phenomenological situation, in which the experience of objects is ambiguous, corporal, and direct. Acuff’s imagery springs from a handful of diverse sources, in which actual and mediated visions of animals and landscapes blur. It is the product of a suburban imaginary and of an accompanying cultural narrative that positions nature and culture at two extreme ends of a spectrum. This polarization paints nature as an ideal; a space or thing unadulterated, authentic, and real.
Michelle Acuff originally hails from the Midwest where she received her BA from Augustana College, Rock Island, IL and her MA and MFA from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA. Currently Acuff lives in Walla Walla, Washington and is an Assistant Professor of Art at Whitman College.
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Christian Benefiel
HOT AIR
March 9-April 6, 2012
Opening Reception and Artist Talk: Friday, March 9, 7-9pm
Closed during Spring Break, March 17-25
Using new and reclaimed commercial building materials and scrap, Christian Benefiel’s formalist sculptures explore the transformation of craft, the way products are manufactured, shipped and assembled instead of being built. Through abstract form suggested by the natural and synthetic properties of the materials, Benefiel’s work questions the shift from workmanship and trades to automation and labor; product identity to pre-fabrication; and permanence to disposability.
Living and working out of Baltimore, Maryland, Christian Benefiel received his BFA from East Carolina University, Greenville, NC and his MFA from the University of Maryland, College Park, MD. Benefiel has exhibited throughout the eastern United States and Europe, and has just completed a William J. Fulbright Post-Graduate Research Grant in Helsinki, Finland.
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2012 W&J Senior Show
April 20-May 6, 2012
Opening Reception and Artist Talks: Friday, April 20, 7-9pm
Valerie BOTT
Joanna KRAUSE
William LEWIS
Amber McINTYRE
Michael MORRIS
Kate PUTKOSKI
James RANSAW
Tierney RISLEY
Washington & Jefferson College art and art education majors graduating in spring 2012 exhibit their work across a variety of media in this annual senior capstone event.
For additional information please contact Doug McGlumphy, Director, Olin Art Gallery at: dmcglumphy@washjeff.edu.
