Mercer Gallery Featuring "Plein Kansas" This November

[Garden City, KS] Nov. 1, 2019 -- A new art exhibition opens today at the Garden City Community College Mercer Gallery entitled "Plein Kansas," and will run through Nov. 22, 2019.

The local exhibit features three western Kansas artists: painters Matthew Miller and Amy Warfield, and woodworker Donald Burge.

Warfield, from Hays, is a Garden City native and graduated from GCCC in 2010. A watercolor and oil-based painter, her work evokes the living color and texture of the prairie, according to Michael Knutson, a GCCC art instructor who is also the director of the Mercer Gallery.

Knutson said the exhibit's other painter, Miller, is also a painter from Hays. Miller works primarily with oil and can also be found painting outdoors. En plein air, or plein air painting, is the act of painting outdoors, and both artists' landscape paintings are a homage to their immediate environments, according to Knutson.

"This allows the artists to capture light and an essence, warts and all, of a geographical location," the gallery director said.

The exhibit's third artist, Burge, is a well-seasoned woodworker who makes high-end furniture with a whimsical twist. The abstract, sometimes biomorphic wood sculptor has no formal training; however, a boyhood fascination with carving and whittling led the artist to make pendants and other small pieces from scraps of wood, according to Knutson.

A meet-and-greet with the artists is scheduled today (Friday, Nov. 1) from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Mercer Gallery. The art gallery is open Monday through Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Fridays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Exhibits are always free and open to the public. For more information, contact Knutson at 620-276-9644 or michael.knutson@gcccks.edu.

Garden City Community College exists to produce positive contributors to the economic and social well-being of society.

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