Ruslan Khais The Speer Gallery will feature some of Ruslan Khais’s most recent work. “For the last four years, landscape has been the predominant subject in my art,” says Khais. “The shimmer of sunlight coming through the leaves and its ever-changing reflections over water became the theme of my paintings.” The landscape paintings show the artist’s fascination with light, which he says “started as an attempt to rethink the legacy of Pointillism,” a style that “has found a new frame of reference in our time of digital media.” The soft images depict idealized scenes that blur the distinction between reality and abstraction and allude to aspects of pixilation. “I’m searching for pastoral images awakening an emotional response,” says Khais of the paintings. Ruslan Khais studied at the Moldavian State Pedagogical University and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He has won numerous awards for his work, which has been featured in many exhibitions and is held in private collections.

Red Creek, 2006, oil on canvas, 50" x 60" Reflection, Blur, 2006, oil on canvas, 50" x 55"

April 2 – May 6, 2007
Paintings by Peter Van Dyck '97

After graduating from Shipley in 1997, Peter Van Dyck studied at Wesleyan University and the Florence Academy of Art. Van Dyck’s traditional techniques lend a classical style to his paintings. He is represented by the John Pence Gallery in San Francisco, the Eleanor Ettinger Gallery in New York, and the Artists’ House in Philadelphia. He is currently an Adjunct Faculty member of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art.

Carnation

Hallway with Electrical Box

Portrait of a Girl: Oil on canvas, 14" x 13", 2005

February 12 – March 22, 2007
Paper in Different Forms from the West Collection at SEI

“The foremost goal of the West Collection is to meet young artists who are creating challenging and inventive work and to present an experience of this new art to the public.” Housed in the corporate campus of SEI Investments, the West Collection boasts over 2,000 works of art, with traveling exhibitions shown in museums and university galleries as well. The works of three artists from the West Collection will be shown in Speer Gallery through March 22.

Long-Bin Chen uses magazines, newspapers, and other discarded paper items to create sculptures with themes that combine American and Chinese cultures. Chen’s sculptures are also informed by the notion of consumerism—aptly formed using the waste of our “paper society.” The artist’s works have been widely exhibited in Germany, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States. Tom Zummer, 2002, Portrait of Tinker: graphite and pure carbon on paper; 42" x 30" Doug Morris is an emerging artist who uses paper, velvet, and foam to create 3-D abstractions that relate to mid-century art.

Long Bin Chen, 2005, Buddha Pakistan (Female): phone books; 15" x 12" Thomas Zummer’s robot drawings are part of a series of fifty portraits based on archival photographs, diagrams, and research about the early history of these mechanical beings. These drawings reveal the artist’s fascination with robots as cultural artifacts, and the strange story they tell about modern society. Zummer is also a philosopher, professor, book designer, and comic art novelist.   Doug Morris, 2003, Untitled: ribbon, marker, and acrylic on paper; 26" x 38"

Visit the West Collection's Website to view more work from these and other artists.