University News

Fred Jones Landscape, Time and Spirituality Art Exhibit; Gallery Walk Oct. 25

October 19, 2006

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MACOMB, IL - - Fred Jones, designer of the celebrated “Illinois Portfolio,” which includes the prints of six artists and six poets whose works deal with the Illinois landscape, has an exhibit in the Western Illinois University Art Gallery Tuesday, Oct. 24- Thursday, Nov. 16 titled “Fred Jones: Encounters with Landscape, Time and Spirituality.”

The exhibit is part of the Fall 2006 Nature and Spirituality Series that Jones, a Western Illinois art professor emeritus, created for the University’s First Year Experience (FYE) program in support of the University theme, “Global Challenges and Personal Responsibility – Cultural Diversity.”

Jones will participate in a public reception from 6-8 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 24 at the Gallery and give a noon Wednesday, Oct. 25 Gallery Walk.

“Since retiring from teaching in December 2000, I am now more conscious of the relationship between the experience of time and spirituality in the western Illinois landscape. My recent art works that reflect this phenomenon have taken the form of chronicles, or reflections of temporality. The most ambitious of them are multi-faceted, sequential depictions,” said Jones, who recently returned from his homeland where his work, “Journey to Wales,” is on exhibit through Nov. 4 at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.

“By exploring dynamic themes, such as seasonal changes, light fluctuations, weather patterns and plant cycles, I am trying to reflect a sense of time and sacred reality that was part of human life for thousands of years before the conventions of calendar and clock,” he added.

Jones has included new elements of sequential viewing, grid formatting and digital imaging in his landscapes.

These recent works introduce new elements of sequential viewing of the images presented in a grid format to create a unified representation of temporal change. Collectively, these works are chronicles of temporality and spirituality revealed in the Midwest landscape.

Jones, who came to Western in 1968, integrated computer graphics technology and interdisciplinary mixed media into Western's art curriculum. He produced a significant part of his artistic work through the Western Illinois Folio Press, which he founded in 1980. His five interdisciplinary portfolios are available to view online at www.wiu.edu/foliopress. In 1995 he was named the WIU Faculty Lecturer for his scholarly achievements and contributions to the University. In April 2000, Jones was recognized by the WIU chapter of Phi Kappa Phi honor society with its Distinguished Artist Award.

Jones has won numerous awards in national and regional competitive exhibits and has received six commissions for the Illinois Percentage for Art program for his landscape works for public buildings. Many of his works are in public and private collections in the U.S. and the U.K.

The final two lectures in the Nature and Spirituality series are scheduled for November. At 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 7 in the University Art Gallery, Distinguished Professor Emeritus John Hallway will present “Nature and the Sacred Dimension: The Midwestern Landscapes of Fred Jones;” and at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 14 in the Art Gallery Associate Sociology Professor Diane Sandage will present “Mother Earth Spirituality: A Return to the Land.”

All events are open free to the public. The University Art Gallery is open free to the public from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays and from 6-8 p.m. Tuesdays during exhibitions.

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