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Cover: "Bruce Walters: Halloween Flight"
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"Ascending," 21 x 16", 2009 (graphite drawing on paper)
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"Janus1," Lenticular printing
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Bruce Walters' "Halloween Flight" Takes Wing Oct. 27 at WIU Art Gallery

October 13, 2009

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MACOMB, IL - - Save trick or treating, haunted houses and gory movies for Oct. 31.

To really experience Halloween with all of your senses pushing overload, and still clamoring for more, come to the Tuesday, Oct. 27 opening of "Halloween Flight," a multimedia, multidimensional exhibition installed in the Western Illinois University Art Gallery by WIU Art Professor Bruce Walters.

The 6-8 p.m. Oct. 27 open house will be like no other, according to Walters, who has orchestrated an appropriately eerie, creative and scholarly production to complement his exhibition of graphite drawings on paper, large paintings, digital works featuring lenticular printings - - which produce an illusion of motion and depth - - animation and projections.

Ghosts have been secured for activity in the Gallery's stairwells and for projection on the outside of the building. Students will play a harpsichord, violin and guitar to provide appropriately moody music; University Dance Theatre students, in ghoulish garb and makeup, will dance to the rhythms of the night of the dead; and theatre students will perform the opening scene with three witches from Shakespeare's "Macbeth."

Television producer Mark Dial will film the evening's activities to create what Walters hopes will become a PBS show.

"There aren't many cultural things related to Halloween," said Walters, whose art show runs through Thursday, Nov. 19. "Yet the holiday is the second most popular holiday to Christmas here in the U.S., and it's a very important holiday in Eastern Europe. Cultures throughout the world have a day for remembrance of the dead, which was the original purpose of Halloween."

The central theme, "Halloween Flight," is a series of graphite drawings begun in 2007 during Walters' sabbatical year.

"The series can be read as a fairly straightforward narrative that beings with 'trick or treating' at dusk,'" Walters said. "It is, however, steeped in symbolism and references to traditions of remembering the dead as well as ancient harvest celebrations that signaled the beginning of the dark half of the year."

Walters will lead an 11 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 28 Gallery Walk, presenting background information on the installation as well as techniques of making lenticular paintings.

The "Halloween Flight" exhibition is open free from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. weekdays and from 6-8 p.m. Tuesdays through Nov. 19. To view prints, lenticular paintings and more from the installation, go to www.halloweenflight.com.

For more information, contact Walters at BD-Walters@wiu.edu.

Posted By: University Communications (U-Communications@wiu.edu)
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