Penn State Altoona offers works of Susan Marie Brundage

Friday, February 8, 2013 - 408 hits

ALTOONA – Precious, an exhibition of work by faculty artist Susan Marie Brundage, will run March 14 – April 14, 2013, in the McLanahan Gallery of the Misciagna Family Center for Performing Arts. A reception will be held from 3 - 5 p.m., March 14 in the Titelman Study of the Center.

Brundage received her M.F.A. in painting from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2009 and her B.F.A in studio art from the University of Texas at Austin in 1989. Since moving to Pennsylvania in 2002, Brundage has been actively exhibiting her work both regionally as well as nationally. Notable group exhibits include the 2004 Mid-Atlantic New Painting at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, VA; the 27th and 29th Small Works exhibitions at the 80 Washington Square East Galleries of NYU in New York City; Sleight of Mind: Magic Realism in Contemporary Art at the Flushing Town Hall, Flushing, NY; and most recently Vox VI at Vox Populi in Philadelphia, PA, and Inside/Outside at GoggleWorks, Reading, PA. Recent solo exhibitions include, Imitation of Life at Penn State Altoona and Don’t Tread On Me at Fleetwing Gallery, Lambertville, NJ. She was recently accepted into to The Viewing Program, the curated artist registry of the Drawing Center in New York, NY.

Brundage states about her work, “Precious is a series of small gouache paintings that explores a persistent fascination I have had with open pit mines. This type of mining digs away enormous layers of earth creating very large craters in order to expose the mineral deposits to be extracted. I am particularly interested in open pit diamond mines and the geological devastation they create to extract these sparkly little stones that our culture deems more precious than the actual Earth that they come out of. These mines in some respect are the residue of human hubris in our perceived war with nature. It can best be summed up in the following quote from a Russian individual commenting on the Mirny Diamond Mine: “Funny, people are outraged by this hole in the ground. What I see there is human greatness. Such a big hole to fetch us what we want… So much engineering… So much boldness… And also such a tiny hole in this boring forest. So much left for us…. What some see as destruction, I see as greatness.”

The Galleries are open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. and before and during all performances. For further information, call the Misciagna Family Center for Performing Arts at 814-949-5452.