By MARY LYNNE O'NEAL

Staff Writer

Nationally recognized artist Kiel Johnson and local Grambling State University art students will display their talents in the Tech art galleries until April 7 at the Visual Arts Center on campus.

Johnson, an artist from Los Angeles, displays his artwork in the Tech Art Gallery, while art students from GSU display their talent in E.J. Bellocq Gallery.

Dean Dablow, the director of the School of Art and a professor of art, said Tech tries to get a variety of artwork from different artists in different areas.

"It's difficult for students to travel to a big city, such as Dallas, and see national artists' artwork," Dablow said. "We advertise in several art journals for artists to send in some of their work for us to review."

Dablow describes Johnson's work as "fanciful and whimsical cutouts and collages of a fantasy city below."

Some of Johnson's work features small drawings of different houses, buildings and even a plumbing system, all on a circular platform. Birds are often found in his drawings, especially in many scenes where they fly over different neighborhoods. Neutral colors with light greens and blues are used for those particular pictures.

GSU art students display a wide variety of artwork, from using canvas to computer-generated pictures.

A few works from Kimberly Whitfield, an art student at GSU, feature a divided shelf with different trinkets filling the holes, and a piece of wood with a row of beakers filled with different-colored liquid and sentence fragments written in each.

Whitfield said her pieces were chosen from a senior exhibition show she recently participated in. She enjoyed having her work displayed with her fellow peers and admired their work as well.

"I think everyone did a fantastic job with their work," Whitfield, a graduate student in mass communications at GSU, said. "They will go far if they keep up the good work."

Dablow said Tech and Grambling have an agreement to switch out art displays at each school from both faculty and students.

Christin Bozeman, a freshman engineering major, said she enjoyed looking through the galleries and thought the variation in artwork gives students a different perspective.

"I like that we show a wide variety of art from different artists," Bozeman said. "They all have a theme, such as Johnson with the birds in his pictures."

Both galleries are open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and admission is free for everyone.