Truckee Meadows Community College (TMCC) Art Galleries are exhibiting four new exhibitions by local artists and a curated show by the Art 209 Gallery Practices Class. The exhibitions run Monday, Oct. 9–Thursday, Nov. 2, at four locations on the Dandini Campus. There will be an opening artists’ reception and artist’s talk given by Nolan Preece on Wednesday, Oct. 11, from 5-7 p.m. at the V. James Eardley Student Center and Red Mountain Gallery on the 3rd floor in the Red Mountain Building on the Dandini Campus. Refreshments will be available, and exhibitions are free and open to the public.
"Charwood" by Nolan Preece.
The TMCC Main Gallery will be featuring Chemigrams by Nolan Preece. Preece was born in Vernal, Utah, in 1947, taking his Master’s Degree with emphases on photography and printmaking at Utah State University in 1980. A dedicated Westerner, Preece has been a professional educator, lecturer, and writer on photography, all the while distinguishing himself through an astonishing photographic career that spans 40 years of prodigious experimental activity in all facets of photography. As an innovator and tireless experimenter, Preece has influenced and informed a younger generation of professional photographers through his encyclopedic knowledge of photography - its history, its styles, and its processes.
"Preece's chemigram process is an equal mix of painting, printmaking, and photography. He produces chemigrams without a camera, made in light on silver-based photographic materials. Instead of paints and brushes, or chisels and wood or stone, the chemigramist uses photographic paper, developer, resists, water, and non-hardening fixer and trays filled with these various liquids, consistent with any other medium the chemigram's visual vocabulary is solely dependent on the innovation and imagination of the artists," said Kyle Karrasch, TMCC Galleries Curator and Instructor.
"Crossection" by Elaine Parks.
The Red Mountain Gallery, located on the third floor adjacent to Admissions, features Fossil – Creature – Artifact by Elaine Parks. Parks, a Los Angeles native, received her MFA in ceramics and sculpture from California State University, Los Angeles, in 1999. After graduating, she moved from her hometown of 14 million to Tuscarora, Nevada, a town of 14. She exhibited her work at the Nevada Museum of Art, Oats Park Art Center, Marjorie Barrick Museum, Sierra Arts, and The Holland Project. Parks taught art for seven years at Great Basin College in Elko and received the Nevada Arts Council Fellowship Award twice. She is a Tuscarora Pottery School and Double Scoop Art board member.
"Park's objects of contemplation are about her years of engagement with the desert landscape. In this series of ceramic sculptures, she takes into account her shifting perspectives of the vast terrain and the closely observed details of the arid. This work synthesizes the qualities of the creature, artifact, and soil," said Karrasch.
The Erik Lauritzen Gallery, located on the third floor of the Red Mountain Building near office 321, features Echoes by Bridget Enderle. Enderle's paintings and frottage drawings depict the places she has and now lives as sites to explore memory, emotion, and psychological spaces. Enderle has exhibited her work nationally, including at the Athenaeum Museum in La Jolla in 2019 and 2020 and at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport in 2022. She was awarded the Outstanding Artist Award at the University of Nevada, Reno, in 2023 and is a recipient of the Pattie A. Atkinson Art Endowment Scholarship, Holmes Art Scholarship, Sierra Watercolor Society Art Scholarship, Lucy Nieder MFA Scholarship, Patricia A. Tripple Scholarship, and Craig Sheppard Art Scholarship. Enderle earned her Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts at the University of Nevada, Reno, in 2023.
"Enderle's paintings employ the language of ordinary objects and architecture to reflect on memory, emotions, and mental struggles familiar to the human experience. The items she depicts retain traces of the human presence and serve as vessels of consciousness; as such, they are living archives imbued with personal meaning," said Karrasch.
The Red Mountain Student Gallery on the third floor features a curated show by TMCC’s Art 209 Gallery Practices class taught by Kyle Karrasch himself.
"In this exhibit, Left Behind, we invite you to explore a unique collection of artworks that have been rediscovered and given new life after being left behind by their creators. These pieces, once overlooked, now stand as a testament to the untamed spirit of artistic expression. Each piece whispers the artist's intent, a glimpse into their creative journey," said Karrasch.
"These works were abandoned after a student art show, relegated to the shadows, awaiting their moment to resurface. As curators and students, we felt profoundly responsible for rescuing these forgotten voices to uncover the stories they longed to tell. In doing so, they pay homage to the fleeting nature of inspiration and the boundless potential within every piece of art," continued Karrasch.
For more information on locations and hours, visit Art Galleries.