Hinkle Memorial Library Gallery Exhibit - “Gen/reVision”

The Hinkle Memorial Library Gallery will mount an exhibit -- “Gen/reVision” (two generations of art) -- by Craig Prophet and his son Cameron, both of Alfred.

The exhibit, consisting of paintings and photography, will open Friday, Oct. 29, 2010, and run through the end of the fall semester, Dec. 15. There will be an opening reception Oct. 29 from 2-4 p.m.

Father and son are both graduates of Alfred University. Father Craig, class of 1968, is a painter and an experienced artist/designer. His recent art work comments on society’s infatuation with the computer.

About his work, he says: “Although time is really a continuum, I think of it conceptually like the Roman god Janus - one face toward the past and the other looking toward the future. This one entity manifests diametrically opposite points of view in the context of a continuum.

“This show exhibits two modes of vision in my artwork that currently overlap. Like Janus, some works look back to an already developed style, and some look forward -- to a more abstract and conceptual manner of working. The more abstract pieces could not have been created earlier in my career because they are a recent response to ongoing technological changes that have had an impact on the world of visual imagery -- in almost all media. My new abstract paintings are a creative response to the way images are composed and altered digitally on the computer.”

Cameron Prophet, a more recent AU graduate, is a photographer whose artwork investigates the poetic use of image through the older methods of black and white alternative photography.

About his artwork, Cameron says: “Alchemy is said to be the transformation of lead into gold but its Truth is creation through synthesis and transformation. When considering poetic creation, alchemy spins thus: letters to word, words to verse, verses to image, and image to an understanding beyond the simplicity of its basic visual meaning. It is the experience of poetic image that inspires the reader and breeds an inherent revelation of spiritual essence which is the alchemical process.

“Meditation on a process lends itself to the physical act of creation by which personal meaning is born and the product is inherently transformative. This production of an image holds a presence in the spiritual realm by containing more than pure information. It is the creation of intangible emotion from what is essentially useless matter. This brings about a spiritual awakening which is experienced through the dialogue between the image and the artist or the image and the viewer. From this perspective life becomes poetic and connects the threads of visual and literary syntax to recreate an artist’s view of the world.”

The exhibit may be viewed during normal Library hours: Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m.-11 p.m.; Friday, 7:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.; Saturday, 1 – 7 p.m.; and Sunday, 1 – 11 p.m.