‘MAJOR’ Exhibit Opens Friday at Wabash

On Friday, Sept. 12, a “MAJOR” exhibit opens in the Eric Dean Gallery of Wabash College’s Fine Arts Center. The exhibit debuts with an opening reception from 4-7 p.m., featuring an artist talk at 4:15.

Classmates Mark Brosmer and Ryan Lane were among the first students to graduate from Wabash with an art major in 1985. Over the past 40 years, both artists have cultivated distinct approaches to painting. In this two-person exhibition, fittingly titled “MAJOR,” their work explores the complexity of the everyday, the unseen, and the sublime.

Brosmer is a contemporary realist painter with a surrealist edge and a signature style that is always evolving. The Los Angeles Times called Brosmer’s work “big, bold, and surreal in an orderly way.”

Lane is a professional furnituremaker and painter, exhibiting work in both solo and group shows nationwide. In addition to his painting, he continues to be heavily involved in the woodworking industry as a representative for Indiana Architectural Plywood, one of the preeminent custom veneer houses in the country.

Brosmer and Lane invite you into a world where reality is not easily defined with paintings that challenge viewers to see what is overlooked, question what is before us, and embrace the playfulness and depth that lie within the simplest of things.

Opening that same evening is “20th Century Indiana Art: A Private Collection of Midwestern Regional Paintings,” which features works on loan from the collection of Dan Kraft, a 1985 Wabash graduate.

During the late 19th century and early 20th century, American artists moved away from European influences. Two Indiana-based groups of artists, the Hoosier Group and the Brown County Art Colony, played an important role in the Midwestern version of what became American Impressionism.

“20th Century Indiana Art: A Private Collection of Midwestern Regional Paintings” displays some of the leading artists of these two Hoosier arts groups.

“MAJOR” runs from Sept. 12 through Nov. 14. The Eric Dean Gallery is open Monday – Friday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. and Saturday 2-6 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public.