Ornithology: Works by Barbara Kendrick and Monique Luchetti

Exhibit: Monday, September 28– Saturday, November 7

Reception: Thursday, October 1, 5–7 p.m.

Gallery Talk by Kendrick and Luchetti at 6:30 p.m.

Music by the Parkland Guitar Ensemble

Additional lectures:

Barbara Kendrick, Wednesday, September 30, 1:15 p.m.

Monique Luchetti, Thursday, October 1, 1:15 p.m.

Additional programming related to the exhibition:

Parkland College Sustainability Program activities

Nature visit from the Anita Purvis Nature Center

Giertz Gallery at Parkland College presents a two-person art exhibition exploring ideas about humans’ daily interaction with wildlife and our impact on nature.

“Ornithology: Works by Barbara Kendrick and Monique Luchetti” opens Monday, September 28 and runs through Saturday, November 7, 2015. In conjunction with the exhibit, a reception honoring the artists is scheduled for Thursday, October 1 from 5 to 7 p.m., featuring a gallery talk by Kendrick and Luchetti at 6:30 p.m.

Additional exhibit lectures in the gallery include a presentation by Kendrick on September 30 and one by Luchetti on October 1, both at 1:15 p.m. The exhibit, reception and lectures are free and open to the public.

Kendrick and Luchetti have a fascination and sympathy with birds, but their work is divergent in concepts, material, and process. Although the artists take different approaches in their body of work, they both use images of birds to speak to the ways our lives are inextricably tied together, interdependent and bound to the earth for survival.

“We are alive in a world where the distinction between what we know to be human and what we believe to be animal is shrinking,” the artists said about their exhibit.

Kendrick, a retired professor from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, admires birds’ ability to survive and adapt to new, sometimes hostile environments. The way they build nests in the alphabet of signs on storefronts, or gather cigarette butts to line their nests, informs her collages. As she makes her work, she tries to match her own sense of improvisation with that of the birds. Each collage opens up new questions about our connection to the way the birds live in our world.

Luchetti, a Brooklyn-based studio artist, sifts through museums’ ornithology collections as if they were cemeteries, gleaning the identities of the birds for her drawings, preserved and tagged by humans for further study. Her drawings are a meditation of loss and remembering and on the contradiction inherent in humans: racing to collect, classify, and catalog species while continuing to haplessly destroy the same species through climate change and the devastation of the planet’s forests and oceans.

In addition to the artist lectures, and in tandem with Parkland College’s Sustainable Campus Committee, Giertz Gallery will host a program titled “Owls and Avian Adaptations” on Tuesday, October 20 from 1:15 to 2:15 p.m. in the gallery lounge. Savannah Donovan from the Urbana Park District’s Anita Purves Nature Center will introduce audiences to Quasi, the Eastern screech owl. Donovan will reveal the amazing adaptations that allow owls to thrive in darkness. Other avian specimens will be on hand for comparison.

(October is Campus Sustainability Month, and Parkland’s Sustainable Campus Committee will be hosting several other activities and events throughout the month at Parkland. Please visit the Parkland College website for more information.)

Giertz Gallery at Parkland College hours are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday and noon to 2 p.m. Saturday.

To find the gallery when classes are in session, we suggest using the M6 parking lot on the north corner of the campus. Enter through door X-7, turn left, and follow the ramps uphill to the highest point of the first floor, where the gallery is located. The gallery windows overlook the outdoor fountain area.

Programs at the gallery are partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency. Parkland College is a section 504/ADA-compliant institution; for accommodation, call 217/351-2505.

For more information on the exhibit, please call the gallery office at 217/351-2485 or visit www.parkland.edu/gallery.