PULLMAN, Wash. — Noted artist and art educator Ruben Trejo will lecture March 28 at the Fine Arts Center Auditorium on the Washington State University campus. In his 7 p.m. lecture, Trejo will discuss his work in the current exhibition, “Extended Connections,” on display at WSU’s Museum of Art.
Trejo has spent most of his life as an artist and working in the arts. He has received several distinguished honors, most recently the 2001 Spokane Arts Commission Individual Artists Award. The artist has exhibited his work from coast to coast and around the world. Currently Trejo is a professor of art at Eastern Washington University. His work in “Extended Connections” is a mixed media of large hand shaped milagros (miracles). The objects express Trejo’s Hispanic heritage and culture within the framework of modern conceptual art.
In the exhibit, Trejo also has a large grouping of twisted and bent railroad spikes. The objects have taken on a life of their own with curves that enliven the metal with sensual motion. The railroad spikes are expressions of ancient Mexican deities, gestures of human contact and personal symbolism. The artist described his desire to reform these hard objects, bending the forms so that they take on the characteristics of intertwined movement that is reminiscent of people.
Funding for museum exhibitions and programs for this fiscal year is provided by WSU, the Friends of the Museum of Art, the WSU Foundation, and private donors. Additional support for educational programs has been provided by New Garden Restaurant, Pullman Child Welfare, Pullman Heating and Electric, Pullman Kiwanis Club, Pullman Parks and Recreation, Sims Glass, Windshield Doctor, and other private donors.
