DALLAS, Pa. — Penn State Wilkes-Barre's Friedman Art Gallery is hosting a new solo exhibition by artist Seth Ellison entitled “Lost in Paradise.” The exhibit, which will feature a variety of Ellison’s paintings, runs from Sunday, Aug. 18, through Tuesday, Oct. 29, and is free and open to the public weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Friedman Art Gallery is located inside the campus’ Nesbitt Academic Commons.
Ellison is a Philadelphia-based painter and multimedia artist. He was born in Beckley, West Virginia, in 1984 and lived mainly in the southern United States before moving to attend graduate school. His formative years, he said, were spent compulsively drawing in preparation for a future career as a Walt Disney animator, a period in his life that deeply influenced the paintings he creates today.
Ellison received his bachelor of fine arts degree from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2009 and master of fine arts degreee from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia in 2012, both with a concentration in painting and studio art. He also studied graphic design at Concord University and was accepted into the SCAD Lacoste program, a residential study-abroad location in France, offering immersion in the history and culture of Provence. He has exhibited his artwork in Manhattan, Brooklyn, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Baltimore and internationally in countries such as South Korea and Belgium.
“[My work] reflects my personal experiences based on my upbringing in the rural South. I revive and express the region’s struggles and contradictions, interweaving my personal narrative within its sociological mythology,” said Ellison.
The exhibit’s opening coincides with the Arts at Hayfield organization’s 38th Annual Summer Arts Festival, which will be held at Penn State Wilkes-Barre on Aug. 18 from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., rain or shine.
For more information about this and other upcoming exhibits, email FriedmanArtGallery@psu.edu or call 570-675-9159.