Artist Reception May 6, 2012 Opens Two New Showings at College

[Gwen Break]

Mattie Kelly Arts Center Galleries
Two New Exhibitions May 6 – June 8, 2012

The Arts and Design Society
20^th Southeast Regional Juried Fine Arts Exhibition
and
2011 Best-in-Show Winner, Selena Nawrocki

The Arts and Design Society of Fort Walton Beach, Inc. presents the 20th Southeast Regional Juried Fine Arts Exhibition in the McIlroy Gallery at the Mattie Kelly Fine & Performing Arts Center at Northwest Florida State College in Niceville. This competitive exhibition perennially attracts top artistic talent from across the southeastern United States and showcases works in a variety of media. This year’s juror is P. Hope Brannon, an exhibiting artist and educator who has over twenty years of jurying experience. She holds a BA in Fine Art from Auburn University and an MS in Art Education from Troy University.
The Holzhauer Gallery features the 2011 ADSO Best-in-Show winner, Selena Nawrocki. Nawrocki’s mixed-media wall sculptures unite techniques from the applied arts with forms usually associated with fine arts media. She creates computer renderings and CAD drawings and prints them on transparent panes. These images, rooted in interior design, are framed in zinc, incorporating angles, curves and straight lines; the frames are animated with hinges to suggest swinging doors and movement of traffic through an interior space. The end result is a sculptural form that not only evokes the machine-age through its theoretical background and use of materials, but also invites the viewer into a kaleidoscopic play of light and color. Dr. Nawrocki is a Professor of Interior Design at Valdosta State University in Georgia. She holds a BFA from Mississippi University for Women and an MFA from the University of Memphis, both in Interior Design, and a PhD in Technology Education from Mississippi State University.
An artists’ reception and awards ceremony will be held in the galleries on Sunday, May 6, 2 to 4 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. The galleries are open free of charge Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with additional evening hours on April 17, 20 and 21 from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. prior to performances in the Mattie Kelly Arts Center theaters. The galleries are also open by appointment for classes or groups.

Dr. Seleana Nawrocki and her artwork. Bottom left is Vertigo; Right is PlaneAero 1.