Freyberger Gallery Fall Exhibits and Events
January 2018
Photography by Niko J. Kallianiotis
"America in a Trance" : Photography by Niko J. Kallianiotis
Exhibit opens January 11; however a meet-the-artist reception will be held on Thursday January 18, 2018. Check website during inclement weather for details on campus closing. The exhibit runs through Feb. 22.
About the artist: Niko J. Kallianiotis was born in Greece, who has made northeastern Pennsylvania his home. A photographer, Kallianiotis worked for years as a photographer for newspapers, honing his skills in observation of his environment, and discovering chilling realizations about the so-called American dream. The term American Dream means many things to many people. In 1931, when writer James Truslow Adams coined the term “the American Dream,” it had more to do with idealism than material prosperity.
From the perspective of an immigrant, Killianiotis wrote “A mode to promote American values, industrialism provided a place where immigrants from tattered European countries crossed the Atlantic for a better future….this project is an ongoing observation of the fading American dream so typified in the northeastern Pennsylvania landscape but widespread across the United States. … "
Freyberger Gallery Spring Exhibits and Events
Drawings and Paintings by David Nally
"America Hero" : Drawings and Paintings by David Nally
Exhibit opens March 15, 2018; reception and meet-the-artist 6 – 8 p.m. Check website during inclement weather for details on campus closing. The exhibit runs through April 12, 2018.
A retired steelworker Dave "Dutch" Nally was born in 1960 in Reading, PA, where he lives still. Nally is a self-taught artist who's been making art, he says, since he could hold a crayon. After working a full day at a steel mill, Nally focused on his stream of consciousness art at night.
His keen wit and social satire on everything from politics, to his neighborhood, to the dilemmas of the average “working Joe,” Nally’s art has often been considered as cartoons or caricatures; but they tell complex stories. He creates icons to define American over indulgences, consumerism, violence, dissatisfaction coupled with home grown Pennsylvania Dutch and Berks County humor. It’s Nally’s uncanny perception and observational skills, distilled into his work, that sets him apart. He’s a natural story-teller.
"All of the big things--love and religion, god and universe, and this and that --can be taken apart, and then put back together in a drawing," says Nally.