MPG Arts Changes Name to "Gallery 308"

New Year, New Name, New Exhibit:
"Gallery 308" to Exhibit Works by Three Ball StateGraduates

The Board of Directors for MPG (the nonprofit community art gallery located at 308 East Main in downtown Muncie) announced today that it has formally changed the gallery's name to Gallery 308.

Gallery 308 (formerly known as Mitchell Place Gallery and then called "MPG" after moving to 308 East Main Street last August) has not changed its mission, however. It will continue to present innovative art by local artists.

Gallery 308 opens the 2007 exhibition season on January 8 displaying works by three recent graduates of the Ball State University Department of Art, sculptor Alex Lathrop, and photographers Leslie Rodgers andZachary Schlemmer. All three completed BFA degrees from Ball State University in December.

Alex Lathrop sculpts from an organic perspective. His contributions to the January exhibition come from his senior thesis show, where he chose a medium - steel forging - that was relatively unfamiliar to him.

Leslie Rodgers' photographs combine abstract textures and human forms. She says, "With Polaroid instamatic film, I use photography as a merger between abstract expressionism and the female nude, a classical concept." She is influenced both aesthetically and conceptually by the female nude body.

Zack Schlemmer works from a straightforward documentary approach, with images composed and printed so as to allow for more attention to the subject rather than the processes used by the photographer. "I commonly use a blunt point of view when shooting the subject, intending to present it as objectively as possible," he says.

The three artists's works will be displayed from January 8th through the end of the month. There will be no opening reception for the January exhibition.

The public is welcome to attend the first educational program of the year when, on January 18th, the first Living Art program of 2007 is held. The guest speaker is ceramist Ted Neal who will give a program that starts at 7 p.m.

For more information about gallery hours, volunteer and donor opportunities, please call 765-289-8575.