Kellogg Community College will exhibit works by longtime Michigan artist and arts educator Patti Opel in September and October on campus in Battle Creek.
Opel’s exhibit, titled “Anima and Animus,” features 11 large-scale, wall-hung sculptures and will run from Sept. 11 through Oct. 19 in the KCC Davidson Visual and Performing Arts Center’s Eleanor R. and Robert A. DeVries Gallery, on campus at 450 North Ave. in Battle Creek.
The exhibit is free and open to the public during regular gallery business hours, which are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays.
A gallery talk and closing reception – also free and open to the public – will be held with the artist on Thursday, Oct. 19, in the gallery. The gallery talk, part of the College’s continuing DeVries Lecture Series, will be held from 3 to 4 p.m. The closing reception will be held from 4 to 6 p.m.
In an artist’s statement, Opel says her sculptures begin with traditional German cuckoo clocks and incorporate additional found objects, “conflating the original object’s meaning and creating a new hybrid form.”
The titles of each piece allude to Germanic and Greek mythical deities and their associated symbolism, Opel says.
“I have always had a fascination with mythology. There are lessons in it that can help us uncover personal psychology,” she says. “Myths and spiritual stories across cultures have explored how people overcome numerous obstacles. Those obstacles can be universal themes that connect us.
“Myths can provide a framework to find meaning and positive outcomes in everyday struggles that we face on an individual basis or in larger society.”
Selected by the art faculty of Western Michigan University as one of the Top 100 alumni of the past 100 years for the university’s centennial celebration in 2003, Opel is a longtime artist and educator who is currently the owner/operator of Kook’s Eye Gallery in Pentwater.
Opel has taught art courses at Grand Valley State University, Muskegon Community College and WMU, where she also served as an academic advisor in art. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with emphasis in Painting and a Master of Arts in Counseling in Higher Education from WMU as well as a Master of Fine Arts degree with an emphasis in Painting from Northern Illinois University.
Opel’s work is included in the public art collections of Grand Valley State University and Muskegon Community College, and her paintings and sculptures have been exhibited throughout Michigan including at Adrian College; Albion College; the Alden B. Dow Museum of Art and Science in Midland; the Dennos Museum Center in Traverse City; Ferris State University; the Grand Rapids Art Museum; the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts; the Muskegon Museum of Art; the Richmond Center for the Visual Arts at Western Michigan University; and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids.
Opel’s work has also appeared outside the state at venues in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee, and is held in private collections across the country.
For more information about the exhibit or other KCC arts events and initiatives, contact KCC’s Arts and Communication Office at 269-965-4126.
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