News Release

The Boise State University Visual Arts Center will open for fall with exhibitions by sculptor Robert Kantor and painter Phurba Namgay. Both exhibitions are free and open to the public; gallery hours are 10 am.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday and noon-4 p.m. Saturday.

“The Hope Series” by Kantor will be on display from Sept. 2-Oct. 17 in Gallery 1 of the Visual Arts Center in the Liberal Arts Building. An opening reception will be held from 6-8 p.m. Sept. 5 in the gallery; free parking will be available during the reception in the lot between the Liberal Arts Building and the Special Events Center.

“The Hope Series” includes several large-scale steel and mixed media sculptures created by the Sun Valley artist, as well as a “prison wall” by the artist and students from the Boise State University Sculptors’ Guild. The sculptures are meant to evoke the struggles of war and peace, as well as the complexities of memory and experience. Daniel Kany wrote a book, “Robert Kantor: The Hope Series and Other Sculptures,” published on the occasion of an exhibition of “The Hope Series” at Seattle’s Center on Contemporary Art in 2006.

Namgay’s exhibition, “Traditional and Contemporary Bhutanese Thanka Paintings,” will be on display from Sept. 8-Oct. 7 in Gallery 2 of the Visual Arts Center in the Hemingway Western Studies Center. An opening reception will be held from 5-7 p.m. Sept. 17; free parking will be available during the reception in the lot between the Liberal Arts Building and the Special Events Center.

Namgay is a master painter whose murals can be seen in temples and monasteries throughout the kingdom of Bhutan. He is an instructor of thanka painting and rimo, or drawing, at the Institute for Zorig Chusum. Namgay’s artworks represent some of the best examples of contemporary Bhutanese thankas and mandelas. Namgay uses traditional methods of thanka painting, including hand-mixing natural pigments and creating brushes out of natural animal hairs. The exhibition at the Visual Arts Center will include traditional paintings as well as new contemporary paintings that explore the artist’s journey from Bhutan to the United States.

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Media Contact: Julie Hahn, University Communications, (208) 426-5540, juliehahn@boisestate.edu

Boise State University is “The New U Rising” with record student enrollment, new academic buildings, additional degree programs and a growing research agenda. Learn more at www.boisestate.edu.

 

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Last reviewed on Thursday, September 18, 2008