Curator’s choice Exhibit features local artists

The WSU Museum of Art will display the 2006 “Curator’s Choice Exhibit: From the Palouse,” May 22–July 23. This year’s exhibit will feature the work of local artists James Loney, Heidi Oberheide and Henry Stinson. Museum of Art hours will be noon-4 p.m. Tuesday–Saturday; closed Sunday and Monday.

Keith Wells, curator of the museum, said, “This exhibit is the first in a series of ‘Curator’s Choice Exhibits’ to showcase the talents of local artists. The Palouse is alive with creative fervor but few people are aware of the multitudes or caliber of artists that live in the area.”

James Loney, a Moscow, Idaho, resident, created a trompe l’oeil sculpture that employs realistic imagery to fool even the most scrutinizing eye. Trompe l’oeil is a French term that literally means “that which deceives the eye.”

Loney graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Idaho in 1991. His work recently was on display at the Redbud Gallery in Houston, Texas, and has been featured in exhibits all across the U.S. He also has received the Idaho Commission on the Arts Fellowship award three times since 1989.

Heidi Oberheide, who resides in Palouse, Wash., paints expressive interpretations of landscapes and images that allude to cultural identity and folklore. Wells said of Oberhide’s work, “From her detailed masks to her painterly landscapes, she successfully articulates images from her imagination and experiences.”

She holds an M.F.A. from Southern Illinois University and her work is in numerous private and public collections in the United States and Canada.

From Pullman, Wash., artist Henry Stinson paints boldly colored and often humorous images of appliances, toys and female figures. Stinson’s formal training began at Washington State University where he received his undergraduate degree in fine arts and then continued his education at the Art Institute of Seattle. Recently, Stinson was admitted to the Master of Fine Arts program at WSU.

He has taught drawing and painting for the past 18 years in numerous colleges, privately owned schools and national workshops and has exhibited his work all over the United States as well as in the U.S.  Embassy in Geneva, Switzerland.

Funding for museum exhibitions and programs for the fiscal year is provided by the Washington State Arts Commission, National Endowment for the Arts and the Friends of the Museum of Art. Visit the WSU Museum of Art Web site at www.wsu.edu/artmuse.