Need to feature 'traditional' art leads to the River Campus Art Gallery's Webb exhibition

The Southeast Missouri State University River Campus Art Gallery will host a solo exhibition of artist Brent Webb's paintings.

Gallery Coordinator Kristin Powers-Nowlin and students work together to hang Brent Webb's canvases in the River Campus Art Gallery on Sept. 5.

This is one of many art exhibitions to be shown this school year and the River Campus Gallery Coordinator Kristin Powers-Nowlin said that there was a need to feature what she described as a "traditional" art and paintings show and that she liked the imagery that Webb's paintings brought.

"We have not had an artist do a straight-up traditional painting and drawing show for a little while, so we definitely wanted to get that," Powers-Nowlin said. "Brent sent me, about a year ago, a package inquiring about getting a solo exhibition. We reviewed Brent's packet and everyone liked it, so we offered him the exhibit."

Webb, an assistant professor of arts at Radford University, feels that being an artist has always been his calling and is excited to be featured at Southeast.

"It's so cliché, but [I wanted to be an artist] forever," Webb said. "I like the idea of this being on campus where you can expose it to the students and how it may also allow students to be exposed to arts outside of the region. I believe this new complex over at the River Campus is quite nice, and I just like the idea of showing it here."

Though Webb always wanted to be an artist, he said that he didn't start pursuing this dream until his undergraduate years at Columbus College of Arts & Design in Columbus, Ohio. He later earned a master's at the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting in connection with the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Webb gets his inspiration for his paintings from old photographs found in thrift shops like Goodwill, so that he can tell a true story. The exhibition is entitled "Aporia" and was named that because the story behind the paintings are all reflections of Webb's memory of using people's photos.

"My work is basically about memories and my memories with using other people's photos as a stand-in as a reflection of my memory," Webb said.

Powers-Nowlin felt that this exhibition differed greatly from previous exhibitions held in the past.

"Last fall we had a painting exhibit, but it was all very abstract non-objective paintings and there wasn't a lot of image-based work," Powers-Nowlin said. "Brent's work is more connected to a real image so that you can see the figures. We thought that would bring more to campus than we had in a while."

Webb credited artists such as British painter Jenny Saville, Scottish painter Peter Doig and Italian artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio to inspiring him to become an artist, and he frequently refers to their work.

The art exhibition opened Monday and will be on display Monday through Friday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. until Sept. 25 in the River Campus Art Gallery. All paintings are up for sale at the gallery and are available on Webb's website at www.bxwebb.com.