NEWS

For more than 20 years, award-winning artist David Hamlow of Minnesota has illustrated through his two and three-dimensional elements of large-scale installations the negative impact of consumer waste and the possibility of a creative, collaborative-alternative future.

Those creations and ideas are accessible to north Louisiana now as Hamlow’s exhibition, Et In Arcadia Ego, opens Nov. 1 in the Louisiana Tech School of Design’s Bethea Gallery in the F. Jay Taylor Visual Arts Center on the Tech campus.

The opening’s highlight will be Tuesday’s reception and artist talk, 5-7 p.m., free and open to the public, as are all of this showing’s events.

The exhibition runs through Dec. 12; gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Hamlow is an installation artist working in repurposed packaging and post-consumer waste primarily harvested from his own daily consumption. Viewers will recognize much of the familiar packaging Hamlow uses in his creations.

The recipient of six Minnesota State Arts Board individual artist grants, two McKnight Foundation/Prairie Lakes Region Mid-career grants, and a New York Foundation for Contemporary Art Emergency Opportunity grant, Hamlow exhibits regionally, nationally, and internationally. Recent solo installations have been in the Republic of South Korea, Sioux Fall, South Dakota, and at the Minnesota Museum of American Art in St. Paul, about 100 miles north of where Hamlow lives and maintains a studio in Good Thunder, Minnesota.

Hamlow applied last year to Tech’s “Open Call for Entries for Group and Solo Exhibitions,” which is juried by the gallery committee.

He was chosen “based on his experience, the quality of his work, the depth of his concept — consumerism, re-use, and environmental/political issues—the opportunity to collaborate and participate, and his innovative use of materials,” Brooke Cassady, Director of Tech’s School of Design, said.

“Conveniently,” she said, “that same call for submissions just opened up for the 2023-24 year.”

Artists can apply through the current link.

Hamlow is the recipient of six Minnesota State Arts Board individual artist grants, two McKnight Foundation/Prairie Lakes Region Mid-career grants, and a New York Foundation for Contemporary Art Emergency Opportunity Grant. Hamlow exhibits regionally nationally and internationally. Recent solo installations include Foreign Correspondent at CICA Museum, Gimpo-Si, Republic of South Korea, Immiscible at the Washington Pavilion, Sioux Falls South Dakota, and Mirror Stage at the Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul, Minnesota. Hamlow teaches Introduction to Visual Culture at Minnesota State University in Mankato Minnesota. He lives and maintains a studio in Good Thunder, Minnesota.

All exhibits are free and open to the public.