“Night | Desert | Garden,” an art exhibit by painter and graphic designer Matthew Doll, is on display at Dordt University’s Campus Center Art Gallery from January 13 to February 21, featuring thought-provoking paintings inspired by themes of geography, history, and conflict, with a reception on January 30 at 7 p.m.
“Night | Desert | Garden,” an exhibit displaying art by Matthew Doll, is currently on display in the Campus Center Art Gallery at Dordt University. The exhibit will be held from Monday, January 13 until Friday, February 21. A reception with the artist will take place on Thursday, January 30 at 7 p.m.
“Night, Desert, Garden—each of these represent broad geographic categories,” explains Doll. “Defined by myriad associations in nature, myth, history and ritual, they are equally rooted in poetry, cinema, and narrative. They are landscapes of possibility, representing places of refuge, exile, or distances to be crossed out of necessity or desire. They are places of beauty and hostility, zones of accessibility and fragility.”
The exhibit features paintings created between Jerusalem and Rome, “cities celebrated and burdened by their own identities,” reflects Doll. “They include passages that speak peace against the abuse of power, and scenes of impossible areas of trespass. In using loaded place-names and figures, such as Europa, Golan, Caesar and Leper as a way to invite existing associations for the viewer while drawing upon specific concepts, the work resides in a tension of familiarity,” writes the artist.
Matthew Doll, a painter and graphic designer, is the Program Director of the Gordon in Orvieto semester program in Italy and co-directs the GIO Gallery in Orvieto. He previously taught in the architecture department at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem as well as at the Bethlehem Bible College.
A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Doll also studied on RISD's European Honors Program in Rome. In 1997, he spent a year in Israel on a Fulbright Fellowship and later earned an MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. During his years in Jerusalem, Doll worked as a graphic designer for many of the international organizations and ministries that serve the diverse population of Israel and the West Bank.
“The charged spaces between experience and memory inform the images I make,” explains Doll. “These spaces have allowed the work to co-exist within territories inscribed through conflict and marked by intersecting histories. This work permits a highly personal and imaginative interpretation alongside directly observed content in order to adapt overlapping iconographies.”
The Dordt community and the public are invited to view the exhibit during gallery hours and attend the reception to meet the artist and discuss his work. The gallery hours are Monday - Saturday, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
About Dordt University
As an institution of higher education committed to the Reformed Christian perspective, Dordt University equips students, faculty, alumni, and the broader community to work toward Christ-centered renewal in all aspects of contemporary life. Located in Sioux Center, Iowa, Dordt is a comprehensive university named to the best college lists by the Wall Street Journal, Times Higher Education, Forbes.com, Washington Monthly, and Princeton Review.
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