NEWS RELEASE
Contact: Leah Jackson (jacksonl@nsula.edu)
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466
http://www.nsula.edu/news
6/06/2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NATCHITOCHES- An exhibition of work by Mary E. “Beth” Dupree entitled “Meet the Ladies” will open in Northwestern State University’s Hanchey Gallery on Monday, June 11. An artist’s reception and gallery talk is planned for 6-8 p.m. Saturday, June 16. The exhibition will run through July 20.
Dupree is an acrylic and collage/mixed media artist. She was born in Harmon and grew up in Ashland. She attended Northwestern from 1957 –1960, where she studied painting and commercial art with Orville J. Hanchey and other faculty members. Before graduation, she and her young family moved to Oak Ridge, Tenn., the first of many moves. As a military wife, she moved frequently while maintaining a career teaching art in public schools and continuing to pursue her education and art training.
Dupree received her M.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va., in 1983 and studied painting at several universities, the Vermont Studio School, Rhode Island School of Design and at museum workshops. Her works reside in private collections and are exhibited locally and nationally. Dupree retired from teaching art full-time in the public sector and is presently an adjunct professor of painting at Thomas Nelson Community College in Hampton, Va.
The paintings in the “Meet the Ladies” collection are mixed-media portraits of five generations of women in the artist’s family.
“In the paintings, I tried to capture the characteristics and personas of the subjects through the colors and patterns of the fabric, the color choices of acrylic hues and other collage materials,” Dupree said. “Some of the unusual frames and methods of display is meant as an extension of the theme of the particular painting. I feel I captured the facial resemblances of each subject in the paintings.”
This exhibit is sponsored by Kappa Pi, NSU Alumni Foundation, NSU Department of Student Activities, NSU Mrs. H.D. Dear and Alice E. Dear School of Creative and Performing Arts, and the Department of Fine and Graphic Arts.
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