On Thursday, January 19 from 7 to 9 p.m., the first exhibition of 2012, Miles Holbert’s A Penny for a Dime, will have its opening reception in the James D Brooks Memorial Gallery. The exhibition runs through January 31.
Holbert, a 2008 graduate of the Studio Art program, will complete his MAT this year. While a student in the Art Department, Miles was awarded Best of Show in the annual Kappa Pi Juried Student Exhibitions for the years 2007 and 2008; was the recipient of the 2007 Arts and Humanities Commission Award and, in 2009, was runner-up for inclusion in New American Paintings. His work has been included the 2007 High Gate Mansion Art and Humanities Exhibition, Fairmont, and the 2009 NY AXE Gallery exhibition in Palo Alto, California. In 2008, Holbert’s work was published in FSU’s Whetstone journal.
Of the exhibition in the Brooks Gallery, Holbert says:
“My current body of work explores my concerns with the Marcellus Shale gas drilling going on in West Virginia. These pieces are my sculptural interpretation of the landscape associated with the possibilities of water contamination due to improper drilling of the Marcellus Shale. West Virginia has a dreadful history of interlopers coming in, raping and wrecking the land, and leaving the state in disarray. Once, there were Brook Trout in every stream in West Virginia. A hundred and fifty years ago, you could walk five minutes in any direction and fish a trout stream. Now, you have to drive two or three hours to get to a trout stream that is pristine enough to sustain trout.
Within the last few years, our streams have begun to recover from the damage caused over one hundred years ago, but now the concern is that careless hydro-fracturing may regress the environment to its previous, contaminated state. An outdoor enthusiast and avid fisherman, my major concerns are water contamination and its cleanup. I question the idea of jumping into drilling too quickly, and I explore what the effects could be if proper precautions are not taken.”
Following the Holbert exhibition will be Reflections: Homage to Dunkard Creek (February 2-24), which will portray the massive kill-off of some 65,000 water creatures, now believed to have been triggered by Marcellus drilling waste-water, among other causes. Dunkard Creek has once again become a persistent national story with new evidence tying the fish kill to Marcellus drilling wastewater, and several of the paintings in this exhibition have already received national exposure.
These two exhibitions will add Fairmont State to the growing artistic movement of exploring environmental issues through the visual and theatre arts which has become prominent in our region during the past year.
Brooks Gallery is open Mondays – Fridays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. For special arrangements, please call or e-mail Curator Marian J Hollinger: (304) 367-4300; mhollinger@fairmontstate.edu
