“Shark Series: Ancient Catch,” a digital photograph from the series “Vanishing Species” by Beth Thomas, which goes on display at STC’s Pecan Campus Library Art Gallery on April 23.
South Texas College’s Pecan Campus Library Art Gallery is proud to present “Vanishing Species,” featuring a collection of digital photographs by Beth Thomas. The exhibit opens Thursday, April 23 with an artist lecture at 6 p.m. in STC’s Pecan Campus Building D Auditorium, and a reception immediately following from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Pecan Campus Library Art Gallery. The exhibit runs through May 22, 2009. STC’s Pecan Campus Library Art Gallery is located at 3201 W. Pecan Blvd. in McAllen. Admission to the exhibit and reception are free and open to the public.Currently a professor of art at Galveston College, Thomas uses the practice of photography to visually explore the external world of living at the ocean’s edge and her internal world wrestling with issues such as global warming, inter-relationship and spirituality, which have impacted her own personal survival.
“‘Vanishing Species’ is from a series of digital images which became an impressionistic study intended to function poetically and literally as a visual metaphor for the fleeting of time, life and nature’s beauty in our world which we take for granted,” said Thomas. “The photographs are seductive illusions. They are physical fragments on paper of thrilling and fleeting close encounters with swift and unpredictable sea creatures moving through water at close range, bathed in a blur of color and light in an ambiguous world. An extended moment – then it is gone.”
“Thomas is not only an artist and educator, but also an activist and her art is a vehicle for her concerns,” said David Freeman, curator and programs coordinator for STC’s Library Art Gallery Program. “Photography allows her a medium for the expression of unease and alarm at the intense and immediate disappearance of species from our planet. Her exhibit it adeptly titled ‘Vanishing Species’–an exhibit dealing with problems facing our endangered natural world.”
“A great wonderment comes to each viewer of these works and it arrives in the photograph, the vision, of these species. We seldom ever view a shark in its natural habitat and so to be able to sight these wonders and see their majesty is educational and informative, and Thomas enlightens us as to the fantastic world we live in but are unaware of. Beth Thomas is a multi-tasking artist succeeding in her attempt to save the planet through art.”
South Texas College’s Library Art Gallery Program exhibits regional, national and international artwork, explores new visions and theories of creativity, and introduces innovative artistic expressions to the South Texas region.
For more information call 872-3488.
