GALLERY OPENING IS SATURDAY

The Old Dominion University Gallery will open "Balloons: Recent Work By Ed Gibbs" with a reception at 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 16. The show continues through Nov. 21. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.

In this one-person show by the director of the Visual Arts Center, Tidewater Community College in Portsmouth, Gibbs premieres a collection of his new type C photographic prints created on a flatbed scanner and printed on Fuji Crystal Archive paper.

Gibbs' work is influenced by memento mori, a form of image that urges the viewer to "remember thy death." Emerging during the late Middle Ages, memento mori images reminded Europeans that death was an unavoidable part of life, something to be prepared for at all times. Death and sex have been recurring themes in Gibbs' work and he views them as the "root of comedy."

The University Gallery, located at 350 W. 21st St., Norfolk, is open noon-3 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday; noon to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday; and 1-4 p.m. Sunday. For more information call 683-2355 or go to http://www.odu.edu/al/art/gallery/.