Holy Cross’ Cantor Art Gallery to Feature Paintings and Works on Paper by Worcester Artist and Retired Holy Cross Professor, Terri Priest

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery at the College of the Holy Cross will present Terri Priest Interactions: Paintings and Works on Paper, from Feb. 16 - April 13, 2005.

The exhibit will feature a career-long survey of paintings, drawings and screen prints, made between 1960 and the present, by Worcester artist and retired Holy Cross professor, Terri Priest. Priest was on the faculty of the Visual Arts department at Holy Cross from 1978 to 1993. Spanning four decades of the artist’s career, many of the paintings contained in the Gallery exhibition haven’t been shown publicly since their creation in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. Several recent selections from 2004 will also be shown for the first time. An illustrated catalog will be available with essays by Roger Dunn, professor of art history at Bridgewater State College and Roger Hankins, director of the Cantor Art Gallery.

A series of public events in conjunction with the exhibit will be held at the Cantor Art Gallery:

* Artist Talk, "Terri Priest: Stripes to Light": Feb. 16, 5 - 6 p.m. * Opening Reception: Feb. 19, 4:30 - 6 p.m. * Gallery Talk,  Roger Hankins, Director, Cantor Art Gallery: Feb. 22, Noon * Artist Talk, "Early Work and Social Change": March 3, Noon * Artist Talk, "Vermeer Women and Recent Paintings": March 16, Noon

About the Artist

Priest’s interest in art began in childhood, when she was inspired to "draw like an artist" in the late 1930s by copying Harold Foster’s comic strip "Prince Valiant." Becoming an artist remained her goal through high school and young adulthood as she enrolled in several painting and art history courses at the Worcester Art Museum School of Art and at Assumption College. Her first professional experience as an illustrator/artist was at the Worcester manufacturing company, Wyman Gordon Co., where in 1954 she designed and produced commercial advertisements, display graphics and company signage. During this same time, as she worked at Wyman Gordon Co., Priest continued to make paintings that were informed by modernist art she had encountered at museums from Worcester to New York.

By 1960, Priest had taken her painting to new levels of conviction. Her skill and execution sharpened, she was well versed in the language of contemporary American art and she had a message she wanted to convey through her painting. Priest had become actively engaged in the Civil Rights movement. Motivated by Civil Rights activism, Priest pressed her painting to achieve a presence that would be optically challenging and metaphorically consistent with her strong political and spiritual beliefs. Priest thus began what would become a seven-year series of paintings titled "Organic Interaction," six of which will be contained in the Gallery exhibition.

Priest then began, in 1967, a second large body of work, titled "Static Variations" that followed closely the "Organic Interaction" series in form and theme. In these multi-paneled and sometimes unconventionally shaped canvases, the "Static Variations" paintings, some measuring as big as 6 feet high, 15 feet long, Priest further developed her vocabulary of strict geometric elements coupled with a reductive palette, but now introduced a new set of challenges. In the "Static Variations" series Priest produced a number of large sculpture-like objects made up of two to five separate canvases that assembled into irregular geometric shapes mounted to the wall, ceiling, floor or corner of a room. Priest also allowed - and encouraged - the paintings to be exhibited within set parameters decided by anyone hanging them, thus creating a dynamic collaboration between artist and installer (hence the title of the series "Static Variations").

By this time, Priest, 47, a mother of two teenage sons, and an established artist who had her work included in several museum exhibitions in Massachusetts - including the Worcester Art Museum, DeCordover Museum, and the Springfield Museum - began a graduate degree program at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Priest received her MFA degree in 1977.

In 1978, Priest was hired to teach in the Visual Arts Department at Holy Cross as a part-time instructor and then in 1979 as a full-time instructor. The exhibition will include more than 20 paintings and works on paper Priest produced during the years of her appointment at the College. In 1993, Priest retired from her associate professorship in order to devote more concentrated time to her own painting, as well as to managing and directing the Fletcher/Priest Gallery, a Worcester-based contemporary art gallery. The gallery remained open from 1990 until 2003. During the 13 years of operation, the gallery developed a widely respected contemporary venue for nationally and regionally known artists through monthly exhibitions and events. In 2003, Priest turned her full attention to her own painting career, and closed the Fletcher/Priest Gallery.

In the mid-’90s, Priest again turned her attention to a new body of work that addressed issues of personal loss, illness and transcendence. The "Angel Series" was a series of paintings done between 1995 and 1998 as a direct response and homage to the death of Priest’s sister in the early ’90s. The "Angel Paintings" offers a contrast to Priest’s earlier work of purely geometric abstraction and experimental optical paintings of the 1960 - 1980s, where her subjects became infused with recognizable objects such as agave plants or Greek architecture.

Recent paintings that will be included in the Cantor survey of Priest’s career are "Fragments," based solely on the paintings of Jan Vermeer, the great 17th century Dutch painter. Other works on view are paintings also based on Vermeer paintings coupled with an appropriation of late 20th century artists’ depictions of women or vernacular images such as still life’s of rows of lipsticks by Wayne Thiebaud, or the pop imagery of Roy Lichtenstein’s.

Priest’s recent solo and group exhibitions include: Terri Priest: Reprise, 1963-1976, (solo) Hampden Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 2002; and Terri Priest, Vermeer Women Making Choices, (solo) Clark University Art Gallery, 2001; Revering Vermeer, (group) Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA. 2000; Classical Vision/Personal Obsession, (group) Freddie Fong Gallery, San Francisco, 2004. In 2003, Priest received a commission to paint Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622), the patron Saint of Bishop Ireton High School in Alexandria, Va., where the painting now resides. Throughout her career, Priest’s devoted considerable volunteer time and energy to issues of civil rights, opposition to the Vietnam War and fund raising for a variety of social causes in the Worcester community.

Gallery Information

The hours for the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery are Monday - Friday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 p.m. - 5 p.m. Located in O’Kane Hall, 1st Floor, College of the Holy Cross, 1 College Street, Worcester, MA, 01610. Admission to the gallery is free. Public parking is located on Linden Lane, gate 2, off College Street.

The gallery will be closed to the public March 5 and March 12.

For more information, call the Cantor Art Gallery at 508-793-3356 or visit the Gallery’s Web site at: www.holycross.edu/departments/cantor/website/index.html.