Park University’s Campanella Gallery Opens 2023-24 Season with Exhibit of Landscapes

July 27, 2023 — The Campanella Gallery at Park University will begin its 2023-24 season with “Plain Sights,” an exhibit of prints and artwork by Dora Agbas inspired by landscapes, Monday, Aug. 7, through Friday, Sept. 22. A reception for the exhibit and artist will be held on Thursday, Aug. 17, from 4 to 8 p.m.

Agbas, an adjunct instructor of art/fibers at Park University and a resident of Prairie Village, Kan., said in her artist’s statement, “For the past 35 years, I’ve lived on the edge of the prairie. Arriving in Kansas City, the vastness of the sky as it spreads over the endless horizon impressed me first. Coming from a large city in Europe, the big sky, the unbroken horizon and wide fields of grass are all foreign phenomena to me. After many years of habituation, I had the opportunity to experience this landscape directly during two different residencies.”

“As a process-oriented artist who experiments with materials available in the place I inhabit, I gathered visual and material knowledge from the prairie. The landscape not only gave inspiration for this exhibit, but provided materials to make art with. Most directly, the light, which created the images in my pinhole cameras and activated the shadows of plants with cyanotype. The land provided rocks to make pigment and fallen trees were used for woodblock printing.”

The Campanella Gallery, directed by Andrea Lee, Ph.D., associate professor of art and design, is located inside Norrington Center on the University’s flagship campus in Parkville. The Gallery is open during Norrington Center’s regular business hours:
          •  Monday, Aug. 7, through Sunday, Aug. 13 (summer hours) — Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, closed.
          •  Monday, Aug. 14, through Friday, Sept. 22 (fall semester hours) — Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sunday, 4 to 9 p.m. (Norrington Center and the Campanella Gallery will be closed on Monday, Sept. 4, for the Labor Day holiday.)