De Pree Art Gallery

  • Mottled green and white paper in the shape of a leaf, with snippets of text visible throughout
  • Translucent black and white image of a Black woman's face layered over a color image of a Confederate statue

MOTHERROOT

March 1–March 28, 2024
Becci Davis

MOTHERROOT is an exhibition honoring Black motherhood and nurturing. By drawing connections between motherhood and plant life, the work featured here emphasizes the role that care, legacy, environment and nourishment play in creating the conditions for one to flourish. Programming in conjunction with the exhibition will include an artist talk, studio visits and a workshop in the Department of Art and Art History sponsored by the Cultural Affairs Committee.

This exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Mary Denise Lee and Rebecca Robenia Stephens.

The branching veins of a leaf
and the roots that nourish it
echo the veins in my great-grandmother’s hands
As she picked collards
Every Friday for Sabbath dinner.

The hands of my grandmother
now resemble her mother’s
as she stands before the same sink
picking greens for holiday dinners.

My own mother’s veins have just begun to emerge
gently rolling as she stands before her stove.

I think of the veins that ran beneath the skin of matriarchs
who picked greens for generations
before my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.

Their roots weathered many storms:
in shotgun homes on Baldwin Street,
on farms in Negro Heel,
on the banks of the James River,
on homesteads in West Africa,

so that I could blossom.

Becci Davis (she/they) was born on a military installation in Georgia named after General Henry L. Benning of the Confederate States Army. Her birth began her family's first generation after the Civil Rights Act and its fifth generation post-Emancipation. As a visual artist, they find inspiration in exploring archives, commemoration practices, memory, landscapes and connection to place.

Becci earned her MFA from Lesley University College of Art and Design. In 2021, they were the recipient of the Public Humanities Scholar Award, given by the Rhode Island State Council for the Humanities. Becci has also been awarded the St. Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artist Award in Visual Art, the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Fellowship in New Genres, and the RISD Museum Artist Fellowship. Their work has been shown nationally in spaces such as the Newport Art Museum, TILA Studios, Biennial of the Americas, the Photographic Museum of Humanity and Jane Lombard Gallery.

Becci lives and works in Providence where she is a member of the WARP Collective and serves on the city's Special Committee for the Review of Commemorative Works. They are also a Lecturer at Brown University where they teach Studio Foundations in the Department of Visual Art.

Workshop
Thursday, February 29, 12:30–2:30 p.m.
FRiday, March 1, 9:00–11:30 A.m.

Artist talk & opening reception
Friday, March 1, 4 p.m.


Gallery Hours

De Pree Art Center

Monday–Friday:
10 a.m.–5 p.m.

March 8–15 (Spring Break):
12 p.m.–4 p.m.

The gallery is wheelchair
accessible through the lower level.

The gallery is open during regular hours
for those with a Hope ID. Admission is free.

For those without a Hope ID,
call 616.395.7500 for entry.

275 Columbia Ave.
Holland, MI 49423
P. 616.395.7500
art@hope.edu

Please remember to observe social distancing as well as the gallery occupancy capacity.

Past Exhibitions and Events

2023–24Eric Andre, Amy Kim, Amelia Mendelsohn, and Elizabeth Rose; Casey Droege; Maria Burundarena; Leekyung Kang, Madai Huerta, Isabella Gaetjens-Oleson, Ayanna Njoroge, and Joanna Locke; Daniel Callis
2022–23Class of 2023; Alberto Aguilar; Roberto Torres Mata and CultureWorks; Cooper Holoweski; Kim Faler; Nick Fagan
2021–22Class of 2022; Jason Contangelo, Leekyung Kang, and Emily Mayo; Jim Lee; Ken Steinbach; Maria Calandra; Shauna Merriman
2020–21Classes of 2020 and 2021; Erik Zohn, Lisa Walcott, Greg Lookerse, Katherine Sullivan, Amy Reckley, Steve Nelson, Jay Henderson, and Jennifer Gardiner; Shannon Stratton; Luis Sahagun
2019–20James Perrin; Nate Young; Kekeli Sumah; Steve Nelson; Leekyung Kang
2018–19Class of 2019; Melissa Hopson; Johnathan Clyde Frye; Patrick Earl Hammie; Bruce McCombs; Caleb Kortokrax
2017–18Class of 2018; Kathleen Kooiker; Katherine Sullivan; Malcolm Mobutu Smith; Claudia Esslinger and Tom Giblin; Nancy Susan McCormack

Senior show: out of touch

In this collection of work, we explore individual concepts of humanity depicted in both
2-dimensional and 3-dimensional form. Through a variety of approaches, we look into the simplicity and excess of human form and human essence. By manipulating the familiar, we reduce the figure into elements of structure, identity and nature. In our exploration of the figure, we search for comfort, satisfaction and depth. As we search, we find that there can be discomfort in the form in that it cannot always satisfy. The deeper we look, the more we find that we are out of touch.

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Prints:making

PRINTS:Making is an exhibition curated by 2017 Hope graduate Kathleen Kooiker examining the techniques that have established the foundations for printmaking, the baseline from which the experimental practice continues to grow. The show will display 45 relief, intaglio and planographic prints divided into their respective categories to reveal the fundamental differences in each approach.

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Jamia | Studio

Jamia | Studio, an exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by faculty member Katherine Sullivan, juxtaposes different cultural and period-specific painting methods to reflect shifting power dynamics. Drawing from Indian and Western culture, the work explores the boundaries between abstract and representational imagery, color and form, and direct and indirect painting technique.

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Juried Student Show with Guest Juror Malcolm Mobutu Smith

Open to all students at Hope, the competitive exhibition is an annual fixture in the De Pree gallery. Each year, the Department of Art and Art History invites a recognized artist or curator to judge the student work. The 2017 juror was Malcolm Mobutu Smith, associate professor of ceramic art at Indiana University in Bloomington.

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Distant Tracings // Tracing Distance

Distant Tracings // Tracing Distance explores concepts of connection and separation. The closeness of personal relationships can be thwarted by physical distance, emotional barriers, the passing of time and the method of communication. What role does technology play in facilitating or frustrating our connections? What types of metaphors are apparent in the natural world to expand our understanding of connection and separation? How can our effort to follow, touch, explore and remember change the meaning of what we experience?

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2017 Borgeson Artist in Residence Show: Out of nature

Out of Nature is an exhibition of recent works by artist Nancy McCormack. The exhibition features prints, paintings and sculptural installations on walls and floors. The works deal with intercultural miscommunication, migration, pattern, reproduction, appropriation and conflict. McCormack’s work often addresses issues of constructed identity and personal development. Here she broadens her focus and reflects on the role of the natural world, our influence on it and its ability to affect cultural change.

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2016–17Class of 2017; Tom Wagner; Artists from the US, Canada, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa; Mike Andrews; Chris Cox; Heidi Kraus and Ferris State University's Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia

senior show: STUDIO 147

The exhibition featured work by graduating Studio Art, Art Education, and Art History majors: Peter Anderson, Emily Branca, Xiaoyu Fang, Darwin Guillen, Kate Kooiker, Olivia Lauritsen and Joy Rhine. Included within this exhibition were pieces that varied in medium, including, but not limited to, ceramics, graphic design, mixed media installations, photography and sculpture. The capstone essay for Art History, was also on display.

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No Motherland Without You: Images of North Korea

No Motherland Without You: Image of North Korea features photographs taken by Tom Wagner during four visits to North Korea between 1995 and 2004. In this exhibition, Wagner presents North Korea as a place of looking, of guessing, not knowing, of watching, and of being watched.

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Between the Shadow and the Light: an exhibition out of south africa

Between the Shadow and the Light: An Exhibition Out of South Africa includes art created by 21 Christian artists from the United States, Canada, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa. The artists spent two weeks together in South Africa in an intensive seminar in June 2013, participating in a program designed to introduce them to the many social, economic and political complexities in the region. The result was an exhibition of nearly 40 works in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, installation and video, using a range of styles and approaches to explore those issues raised throughout the seminar.

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Juried Student Show with Guest Juror Mike Andrews

Open to all students at Hope, the competitive exhibition is an annual fixture in the De Pree gallery. Each year, the Department of Art and Art History invites a recognized artist or curator to judge the student work. The 2016 juror was Mike Andrews, adjunct assistant professor of fiber and material studies at SAIC.

Read about the exhibition.

2016 Borgeson Artist in Residence show: Infinite replica

Infinite Replica features photography by 2012 Hope graduate Chris Cox, who was the inaugural Borgeson Artist in Residence at the college. In describing the exhibition, Cox noted, “Infinite Replica utilizes the tools of photographic production to address the increasingly mediated environment.”

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Hateful Things | Resilience

Hateful Things is a traveling sample from Ferris State University’s Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia and features a collection of racist objects that trace the history of the stereotyping of African Americans. The exhibition contributes to and is in dialogue with the scholarly examination of historical and contemporary expressions of racism and visual culture. It also seeks to promote racial understanding and healing.

Resilience was curated by Dr. Heidi Kraus and features world-renowned contemporary African-American artists from the Kruizenga Art Museum and Chicago’s Monique Meloche Gallery, including Faith Ringgold, Sanford Biggers and Lorna Simpson.

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2015–16Class of 2016; Katie Wynne; Billy Mayer; Jeff Blandford; Grand Valley State University Art Gallery

senior show: intervals: something in-between

The exhibition will feature work by graduating studio art and art education majors: Lena Biedrzycki, Samantha Cole, Rachael Corey, Monica Czechowicz, Samantha Grody, Mariah Hunt, Katy Jaderholm, Evan Rodgers and Rian Sayre.  It will include pieces in a variety of media including, but not limited to, painting, photography and mixed media installations.

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Work Day

Katie Wynne's work is a stage for exuberance and abandon, a panic of scavenged colors and forms cut from an American landscape. Through mixed media sculpture and installations, familiar objects are displaced and redefined in an escape attempt from the ordinary, exploring life at its most imprudent and most tenders.

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440

The title of the exhibition derives from 440 hertz, the musical note that since 1936 has been broadcast shortly after the top of the hour by WWV and WWVH, which are shortwave radio stations of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, to aid orchestras in tuning their instruments.

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juried student show with guest juror jeff blandford

Guest juror Jeff Blandford is a ceramicist, glass blower and gallery owner.  After earning his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Michigan State University in 2007, Blandford continued producing and selling artwork created in his barn-studio before opening Jeff Blandford Gallery in Saugatuck, Michigan, earlier this year.  His ceramics and glasswork emphasize materials, simple forms, and an accessible aesthetic.  In his artist’s statement, Blandford writes, “It is easy to become stagnant as an artist—settling with what we know and the works we are comfortable making.  I make a conscious effort in my studio to bend the rules and push the boundaries of materials. This leads me into new and exciting territory.”

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Dusk to Dusk: unsettled, unraveled, unreal

The exhibition is a collaborative project between the De Pree Gallery and the Grand Valley State University Art Gallery. This exhibition of global, contemporary art aims to turn a mirror on the collective world, examining individual isolation, political repression, and collective ennui during the decline of the industrial age.

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2014–15Class of 2015; Eames Demetrios; Corita Kent, Senior Studio Art and Art Education Majors, and CultureWorks; Charles Mason

senior show: To be continued...

The exhibition combines works by 17 graduating studio art and art education majors.  The works will range from ceramics, to animation, to installation to bookbinding. 

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Kcymaerxthaere

Kcymaerxthaere is a multi-pronged and ongoing work of three dimensional fiction, now in its eleventh year. The project, created by artist and filmmaker, Eames Demetrios, can be found in stories set in bronze markers and historic sites - like a novel - where every page is in a different city across the globe.

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Hope has me

“Hope Has Me:  A Collaborative Exhibition Inspired by the Words and Works of Corita Kent” marks the culmination of a three-month experiment in socially-engaged art making. This past fall, Hope senior studio art and art education majors teamed up to create original works of art with after-school students at CultureWorks, a local, faith-inspired nonprofit dedicated to providing transformative art and design experiences to individuals of all backgrounds.

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Juried Student show with guest juror paul amenta

This year’s guest juror, Paul Amenta, is the founder and curator of SiTE:LAB in Grand Rapids, creating pop-up installations in unique architectural environments. His curatorial work with SiTE:Lab earned the “nomadic” arts organization “Outstanding Venue Juried Award” given out by ArtPrize.

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Art and Poetry

The exhibition has been curated by Charles Mason, founding director of the college’s Kruizenga Art Museum, which is under construction immediately northwest of the De Pree Art Center and scheduled for completion during the 2015-16 school year. Mason will give a curator’s talk on Friday, Aug. 29, at 4 p.m. in Winants Auditorium of Graves Hall, with a reception following in the gallery from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. The combination of poetry and art for the exhibit is a natural connection for Mason.

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2013–14Class of 2014; Stephen Milanowski; Sarah Lindley; Charles Mason; Charles S. Anderson and Laurie DeMartino

Senior Show: Exceptional Spaces

The annual senior art show at Hope College, “Exceptional Spaces,” will open on Friday, April 4, with a reception from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the gallery of the De Pree Art Center.

Portraits of Strangers

The exhibition, which opened Friday, Feb. 21, is the third and final in this year’s inaugural “Breaking Artistic Barriers Series” focusing on disegno. “Disegno,” or “design” in its original, 16th-century definition, refers to the creative idea in the mind of the artist. The goal of the series is to explore the principle of disegno through a contemporary, 21st-century lens. Over the course of the academic year, the exhibitions and programming at The De Pree Gallery have been devoted to exploring how “design” in its broad, modern usage—that is, in denoting the graphic and industrial arts—can co-exist with the so-called “fine arts” and aid one another in the unique expression of self.

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Exit Allegan

The exhibition will continue through Friday, Feb. 7. Admission is free. Lindley is department chair and associate professor of art at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo. She studied art at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, receiving her BFA in 1996. She earned her MFA from the University of Washington. She describes her exhibit as being “generated in response to the pull of place, a desire to understand the landscape of my surroundings and that which is concealed beneath the surface.”

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juried Student Show with guest juror charles mason

This year’s guest juror, Charles Mason, is the founding director of the Kruizenga Art Museum at Hope. Prior to joining the college in July, Mason was executive director of Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, California. He has also served as chief curator of the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art in Toronto, Canada; chief curator of the Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida in Gainesville; and curator of Asian Art at the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College in Ohio.

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Art for Commerce

In 1989, Charles S. Anderson Design was founded with a single client—The French Paper Company in Niles, Mich. While the firm has worked with many clients since, their partnership with French Paper has endured as one of the longest-running, most prolific and internationally recognized client/designer relationships in the history of graphic design.

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2012–13Class of 2013; Steve Nelson; Star Varner, Elizabeth Dove, and Jeremy Lundquist; Hope College Alumni; Sally England and Nick Stockton; Ann Weber

Senior Show: Collective Bargaining

The exhibition, titled Collective Bargaining, features works by graduating studio art and art education majors and will continue through Sunday, May 5. The exhibiting majors are Athina Alvarez of Grand Rapids; Megan Altieri of Bay Village, Ohio; Leah Carroll of South Lyon; Jacob Dombrowski of St. Clair Shores; Rebecca Hawkins of Elk Rapids; Justin Korver of Sioux Center, Iowa; Benjamin Pina of Cedar; Alyssa Richards of Carmel, Ind.; and Rebecca Robinett of Chicago, Ill.

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Reclamation: Gardens of Past Industry

A gallery installation featuring photographs from his sabbatical travels to Michigan's abandoned industrial sites, photography professor Steve Nelson explores recurring themes of ruin and rebirth.

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Proof: An Exhibition of Contemporary Printmaking

Transcending the inherent qualities of line, color and multiple original copies of the printmaker’s craft, Star Varner, Elizabeth Dove and Jeremy Lundquist explore issues of 21st-century art in their printmaking practices. Digital media, video, installation and photographic process connect with traditional methods of lithography and intaglio in the exhibition.

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Alumni Show: 17

The Alumni Art Show will feature alumni from the college’s studio art program. Their class years range from 1963 through 2009, and they are from as far away as Cambridge, Mass., and Middleton, Idaho, and as nearby as Holland.

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Juried Student show with guest jurors sally england & nick stockton

The competitive exhibition, open to all students at Hope, is an annual fixture in the De Pree gallery.  Each year, the department of art and art history invites a recognized artist or curator to judge the student work. This year’s jurors were Sally England and Nick Stockton, two Grand Rapids-based artists.

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Beauty, Joy, and Wonder

Weber says in her artist statement that she began working with cardboard in 1991. “Cardboard allows me to make monumental, yet lightweight forms, and eliminate the cumbersome process of clay. My abstract sculptures read as metaphors for life experiences, such as the balancing acts that define our lives. ‘How far can I build this before it collapses?’ is a question on my mind as I work.”

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2011–12Calla Thompson; Hope College Rare Book Collection; Dana Friis-Hansen; Bruce McCombs; Artists from Curaçao

Solid State

This work is situated in the future, and imagines an anthropological survey of our current culture. These images of ice-encased debris are the result of a future glacial covering of North America. Part of an ongoing series, they present the residue of our current social customs and behaviors, offering a cross-section of subsistence patterns, beliefs as well as groupings and interactions.

Reading Between the Lines

Works from the Rare Book Collection at Hope College spanning more than 500 years will be featured in an exhibition in the gallery of the De Pree Art Center reflecting on how books have histories to tell about production, culture and readership beyond the texts they bear.

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juried Student Show with guest juror dana friis-hansen

This year's juror is Dana Friis-Hansen, director and chief executive officer of the Grand Rapids Art Museum. He grew up in New England and attended Minnesota's Carleton College before accepting an internship with the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. He subsequently worked in Houston, Texas; Boston, Mass.; Tokyo, Japan; and Austin, Texas, before his 2011 move to Grand Rapids.

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Hope College Architecture: An Exhibition of Watercolors

The exhibition opening on October 14, like the two that preceded it, will feature new works that highlight multiple facets of the campus, from Graves Hall and Dimnent Memorial Chapel, built in earlier centuries; to the Martha Miller Center for Global Communication, DeVos Fieldhouse and Van Andel Soccer Stadium, built in this one.  Working from photographs that he has been taking across his years at Hope, McCombs has painted not only scenes of the present but moments from the past, like the imminent relocation of one of the houses that preceded the construction of the Haworth Inn and Conference Center in the 1990s.

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Island Reflections: The Contemporary Art of Curaçao

The vibrant and diverse contemporary art and cultural heritage of the Caribbean island of Curaçao will be the focus of an exhibition in the gallery of the Hope College De Pree Art Center opening in August.

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2010–11Class of 2011; Thomas Allen; Gwen Barba, Joe Biel, Hilary Hopkins, John Spurlock, and Eric White; Mark Holmes; Katherine Sullivan; Maureen Cummins, Ann Lovett, and Nava Atlas

 Senior Show: InHabit

Artwork by graduating studio art majors at Hope College will be featured in the exhibition "Inhabit" in the gallery of the De Pree Art Center from Friday, April 8, through Sunday, May 8.

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Paper Cuts

The gallery of the De Pree Art Center at Hope College will host "Paper Cuts," an exhibition of work by Thomas Allen, from Friday, Feb. 18, through Friday, March 18.

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End of the Line

The Gallery of the De Pree Art Center at Hope College will host "End of the Line" featuring works by Gwen Barba, Joe Biel, Hilary Hopkins, John Spurlock, and Eric White, beginning Friday, January 14 through February 11, 2011.

Line is a fundamental element in all forms of the visual arts; line pushes concepts, gives shape and exaggerates form. Simply put, line communicates because it marks the beginning and the end of the creative process.

juried student show with guest juror mark holmes

This year's juror is Mark Holmes, a 1983 Hope graduate who is an associate professor of art at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., where his teaching interests include sculpture, ceramics and art history. Some of his recent achievements include solo exhibits at Dominican University in River Forest, Ill., in 2007 and the Beverly Arts Center in Chicago, Ill., in 2007. Holmes, who holds an MFA from Yale University, was also featured as a visiting artist at Trinity Christian College in 2005.

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The Docile Body

Exhibiting work from her sabbatical during the 2009-10 school year, Katherine Sullivan reflects in a series of paintings on the dialectics of power. "With images drawn from both Abu Ghraib and the dramatic works of Bertolt Brecht, the series considers the cyclical nature of torture and violence, the sexuality implicit in much torture depiction, and the dynamics which prevail between those who hold power and those who are subject to it," explained Sullivan.

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In Retrospect

Working in the medium of works on paper and one-of-a-kind or limited-edition artist's books, Maureen Cummins, Ann Lovett and Nava Atlas explore contemporary culture through images, documents, texts and ephemera gleaned from public and private archival material.

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2009–10Class of 2010; Mark Paris; Jennifer Falck Linssen; Jimmy Kuehnle; Margaret Cogswell; Michael Ferris Jr.

Senior Show: This is ______

Works by Hope College seniors will be featured in the exhibition "This Is: _____" in the gallery of the De Pree Art Center from Friday, April 9, through Sunday, May 9.

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The American Dream

The exhibit will have 34 black and white photographs documenting immigrants working in America running at the same time as the César Chávez celebrations. "My wish is that my photographs touch you, the way the scenery touched me when I was there," Paris said. "Know that my pictures come from my heart. And also know that sharing the beauty of this land with you is my mission."

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Captured Light

Linssen is a classically trained fine artist who has been designing and creating art for more than 20 years. For the past 10 years, Linssen has chosen to focus on textiles and sculptural vessels. She works full time in her studio in Boulder, Colo.

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juried student show with guest juror jimmy kuehnle

Each year, the department of art and art history invites a recognized artist or curator to judge the student work. This year the juror is Jimmy Kuehnle, who received an MFA in sculpture in 2006 from the University of Texas at San Antonio. In 2008 he researched public art and worked in the studio as a Fulbright Graduate Research Fellow and artist in Japan. In the summer of 2009 he was a resident artist at Atelje Stundars in Vaasa, Finland. This fall he is the Philip C. Curtis Artist in Residence at Albion College. His current exhibition, "I Don't Like Cold Weather," is at the Bobbitt Visual Arts Center, and a solo exhibition of new work will be at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kan., in January.

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River Fugues

In the last five years, Cogswell has focused her faculties on exploring the ever-shifting banks and waters of American rivers - and produced a series of installations that are among the most original in contemporary art. The River Fugues use space, sound, video, and sculpture to explore the interaction between the great rivers of North America and post-industrial American culture.

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Michael Ferris

Ferris opens a dialog regarding ecologically minded art- making practices and recycled materials as they relate to depicting the human figure. The exhibit will feature sculpture and ink/acrylic wash on paper.

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2008–09Class of 2009; Richard Wunder and Maurice Kawashima; Joe Biel; Ken Little; Lyman Jellema

Senior Show: Grafted

The pieces represent the culmination of four years of artistic study and development. "The show will be like a big family potluck," studio art major and senior Emilie Puttrich said. "Everyone brings something unique to the table."

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The printed image

The exhibition highlights several etchings and engravings collected by Dr. Richard Wunder and generously made available to Hope by Dr. Maurice Kawashima, two dedicated friends of HopeCollege.  The exhibition was curated and the prints were researched by participating students in the advanced art history seminar conducted in the fall semester 2008 under the direction of Dr. Anne Heath, assistant professor of art history.

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juried student show with guest juror joe biel

Each year, the department of art and art history invites a recognized artist or curator to judge the student work. This year the juror is Joe Biel, a Los Angeles-based artist who is represented by Geoff Rosenthal of New York City.

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Shell Games

An engaging sculpture exhibition of mixed media ranging from American currency to bronze. Ken Little is a Professor of Art at the University of Texas, San Antonio. His work is found in public and private collections, such as the Contemporary Art Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, The City of Seattle, The Nelson Gallery of the University of California, Davie and the Microsoft Corporation in Seattle, Washington.

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The Tangible Intangibles

The exhibition will feature 30 drawings, watercolors and oil paintings by Holland native Lyman Jellema. From the early sketches from life drawings classes to more experimental landscapes, his journey from student to artist is explored.

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2007–08Women Artists from Vietnam; Thomas M. Allen; Erin Carney; E. McKnight Kauffer and Don Shepherd

Changing Identity: Recent Works from Women Artists from Vietnam

Exhibition curator, Nora Taylor, PhD, Alsdorf Professor of South and Southeast Asian Art, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, will present a lecture on Friday, January, 25, 2008 at 5:00 p.m. in Cook Auditorium in the De Pree Art Center. Following her lecture, Dinh Thi Tham Poong, one of the exhibiting artists will discuss her own work in our gallery.

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juried student show with guest juror thomas m. allen

Each year, the department of art and art history invites a recognized artist or curator to judge the student work. This year's curator is photo artist Thomas M. Allen, whose work has appeared in numerous solo and group exhibitions. In addition, his unique work has appeared in a variety of magazines, including "The New Yorker," "Harper's Magazine," "The Georgia Review," "Gentleman's Quarterly."

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New Works

Erin Carney, a New York based painter, was born and raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She received a B.F. A. in Sculpture and a B.A. in English Language & Literature from the University of Michigan in 1997 and an M.F.A in Painting from the New York Academy of Art in 2003. She taught painting at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York, first as Visiting Artist in Painting and then as Visiting Assistant Professor, from 2005-2006.

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Artist/Designer

E. McKnight Kauffer (1890-1954) was a graphic designer whose work included posters for clients ranging from London Underground Railways to American Airlines; as well as book covers for T.S. Elliot, William Faulkner and H.G. Wells; and costumes and sets for the Victoria and Albert Museum Theatre and the Royal Ballet. The exhibition features a number of his posters as well as other works including etchings, woodcuts, and pencils, inks and watercolors.

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2006–07Class of 2007; Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) with Bastes College Museum of Art; Jennifer Gardiner-Lam and Steven Nelson; Art Martin; Bill Wittliff; Hope College Alumni; E. McKnight Kauffer

Senior Show: ArtSEE

Work represented in the show ranges from installations to paintings, and furniture to photography. The exhibiting studio art majors are: Alison Bouwer of Holland; Jessica Gipson of Western Springs, Ill.; Maggie Jetter of Greenville, Ohio; Laura Kinnas of Orland Park, Ill.; Cullen Kronemeyer of Grand Rapids; Lindsey Leder of Durango, Colo.; Peter Mattson of Chicago, Ill.; Derek Nevenzel of Holland; Nancy Nicodemus of Holland; Aaron Raatjes of Mokena, Ill.; Christine Rentner of Elmhurst, Ill.; Cameron Schuler of Albion; Julie Ann Valleau of Saugatuck; and Kyle Waterstone of Holland.

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Documenting China

Separated from the West by thousands of miles and seemingly insurmountable cultural barriers, China has long been an unfamiliar, romanticized land - until recently. In the new exhibition "Documenting China: Contemporary Photography and Social Change," the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) partners with Bates College Museum of Art in Lewiston, Maine, to explore the social change in the most populous nation on earth.

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Perspective/Introspective

Gardiner-Lam is an adjunct assistant professor of art at Hope, where she has taught since 1997. She has taught printmaking, drawing, life drawing and watercolor, as well as the First-Year Seminar for incoming students.

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juried student show with guest juror art martin

All Hope students are eligible to submit work in any media for the exhibition, which traditionally includes a mix ranging from drawing, photography and painting to multimedia sculptures. This year's juror was Art Martin, exhibitions curator at the Muskegon Museum of Art.

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La Vida Brinca

La Vida Brinca is an exhibit of the pinhole photographs of Bill Wittliff. This collection of works, spanning ten years, is the work of a native Texan who is a self taught photographer as well as an "A List" screenplay writer for Hollywood whose credits include, The Black Stallion, The Perfect Storm, Legends of the Fall and Lonesome Dove.

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Treasures of our Past

The Department of Art and Art History faculty takes immense pride in the accomplishments of our students and, with great pleasure, presents this inaugural Hope College Invitational Alumni Art Exhibition.

E. McKnight Kauffer

The exhibition displays 17 advertising posters by Kauffer. Taken from the college's Maurice Kawashima Collection, the works feature subjects ranging from American Airlines, to Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey, to a 1938 exhibition at Burlington Gardens, Wis.

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2005–06Class of 2006; Needle Art; Inuit Artists from the Canadian Arctic; Jeremy Jernegan; Bruce McCombs; Ryan Spencer Reed; John Vander Burgh

Senior Show: Wherefore Art?

An exhibition of work by graduating seniors majoring in art and art history at Hope College will open in the gallery of the De Pree Art Center on Friday, March 31, with a reception from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

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Needle Art: A Postmodern Sewing Circle

The needle is an ancient and universal tool, and an evolutionary thread connects the artists in this exhibition with their historical past. Some use the sewing machine, a tool that merges artistic creation with commercial production and precision. Other artists are laptop sewers, accomplishing their work stitch by stitch. The artists in this postmodern sewing circle use familiar techniques - embroidery, quilting, beadwork and upholstery - in a very contemporary way. But though the methods may be traditional, the materials range from gingham and organza to beach towels, Styrofoam, cornhusks and even baseballs.

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Cultural Reflections

Twentieth-century Inuit art from the Canadian Arctic reveals the evolution of a dynamic culture still in process. It is a reflection of life on the land; a record of daily events, a glimpse into a magico-religious spiritual belief system. It is a visual narrative which serves as a vehicle for keeping alive the old ways; the old life of skin tents and snow houses, the nomadic life when seasonal hunting dictated lifestyle and, in essence, survival.

juried student show with guest juror jeremy jernegan

A total of 27 students have pieces in the exhibition. Works range from traditional media such as drawing, photography and painting, to multimedia sculptural installations. All Hope students were eligible to submit work in any media. Jeremy Jernegan, professor of art at Tulane University, juried the exhibition.

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New Watercolors of the hope college campus

McCombs's watercolors fit into the photorealist tradition. The works are not "views" in the traditional sense of visual records of the buildings. Rather, they are excerpted details and surprising perspectives, sometimes of small or inconspicuous minutiae.

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Ryan Spencer Reed: The Sudan Project

Reed will deliver a guest lecture in advance of the symposium, speaking on Tuesday, Sept. 27, at 1 p.m. in the gallery of the De Pree Art Center.

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 Through A Glass Clearly

This event is the first monographic exhibition of work by Vander Burgh, who was born in 1916 and died on March 31, 2004. He attended the Royal Academy of Arts in the Hague from 1935 to 1937, and immigrated to the United States in 1951. He worked at first at the Grand Rapids Art Glass Company, and then set up his own art studio in Zeeland in 1957.

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2004–05Stanley Harrington; Maurice Kawashima; Joséphine Sacabo and Mariana Yampolsky; Katrina Herron

Stanley Harrington: A Retrospective Exhibition and Sale

Harrington was a member of the Hope faculty from 1964 until his untimely death at age 32 on Oct. 18, 1968, of a brain aneurysm. The exhibition, curated by a former Hope colleague, Del Michel, professor emeritus of art, will feature some 50 works that Harrington painted, both oils and acrylics, from 1958 until the year of his death.

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New Vessels

Fashion Designer, Professor, and Collector, Maurice Kawashima made his first donation of Japanese ceramics to Hope College in 1989, a collection which has been celebrated in two exhibitions in the De Pree Gallery in 1993 and 2002. This exhibition sets on display an entirely new gift of fine Japanese ceramics, and celebrates the continuation of this cultural partnership.

Two Eyes on Mexico

Joséphine Sacabo is a native of Laredo, Texas, and now lives and works mostly in New Orleans. She attended Bard College, New York and has worked extensively in France and England. Her earlier work was in the photo-journalistic tradition, influenced by Robert Frank, Josef Koudelka, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

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From One Generation to Another

Collection Registrar Katrina Herron has designed this exhibition to do more than simply “air out” the permanent collection. She has made it an exploration of the history of the collection, with an emphasis on the people that have created it.

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2003–04Artists from Nagoya, Japan; Katherine Sullivan and Israel Davis; Tulipanes Latino Art and Film Festival

Light Boxes/Dark Rooms

The artists, who all work in or near Nagoya, Japan, explore basic themes in art such as the nature of imagery and the nature of looking. Their sources, which include zen philosophy, postmodern theories, and contemporary film, demonstrate a sophisticated and erudite knowledge of the world.

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Katherine Sullivan and Israel Davis

The exhibition reflects the modern conception of artworks as art objects themselves and not only as a means of conveying images, according to curator John Hanson of the Hope faculty.

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 Loteria

Mounted in collaboration with the Tulipanes Latino Art and Film Festival, the exhibition will feature an opening reception on Friday, Oct. 3, from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. with a children's program including a game of Loteria. The event will also feature a lecture by artist Teresa Villegas, "La Loteria: An Exploration of Mexico" at 5:30 p.m.

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De Pree Gallery Floor Plan (PDF)