Visiting Artist Lecture Set for Oct. 26 in BAL

October 23, 2012

Gary Simmons, a New York-based artist whose contemporary work confronts stereotypes related to race, identity and culture, will deliver a lecture at Old Dominion University on Friday, Oct. 26.

The lecture, sponsored by the ODU art department, the College of Arts and Letters and the Chrysler Museum of Art, will begin at 4 p.m. in Room 1012 of the Batten Arts and Letters Building. There will be a reception in the lobby at 3:30 p.m. to meet the artist.

Simmons' artwork portrays icons and stereotypes of American popular culture, but in a suggestive fashion, addressing personal and collective experiences of race and class. He is best known for his "erasure drawings," in which he draws in white chalk on slate-painted panels or walls, then smudges them with his hands - a technique that renders their imagery ghostly.

Simmons' early, three-dimensional sculpture work incorporated powerfully suggestive symbols of oppressions such as hoods and nooses. His paintings, drawings and sculptures have exhibited throughout the United States and internationally.