UNT on the Square exhibition highlights art professor's decades of work

Monday, January 5, 2015 - 15:35
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What: Vincent Falsetta: Agendas – Several Decades of Painting. The exhibition will be a retrospective of the paintings of Falsetta, a studio art professor at the University of North Texas' College of Visual Arts and Design.

When: Jan. 26 (Monday) to Feb. 21 (Saturday); Gallery hours are 9 am to noon and 1-5 p.m. Monday through Friday with extended hours to 8 p.m. on Thursday, and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday

Where: UNT on the Square, 109 N. Elm St., Denton on the downtown square

Cost: Free

Reception: Visit with the artist and enjoy refreshments from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Jan. 30 (Friday)

More information: For more information on this and other exhibition, visit UNT on the Square online.

DENTON (UNT), Texas – UNT on the Square's first exhibition of spring is a retrospective of the work of College of Visual Arts and Design professor Vincent Falsetta, an Institute for the Advancement of the Arts emeritus fellow who has painted abstractions since the 1970s.

Vincent Falsetta: Agendas – Several Decades of Painting will be exhibited Jan. 26 to Feb. 21 at the gallery, 109 N. Elm, Denton. There will be a reception with the artist from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Jan. 30 (Friday). Falsetta was a 2012-13 UNT Institute for the Advancement of the Arts Faculty Fellow. The institute is celebrating its fifth anniversary by highlighting the works of current and past faculty fellows.

The exhibition will show the evolution of Falsetta's work – from the early paintings (1970s through mid-1990s) that were in acrylic and completed with meticulous technique to the contemporary oil works that use a more expressionistic approach. Although Falsetta's studio practice includes paintings, index card drawings and color studies – it will be the paintings that are featured in this exhibition.

The paintings of the last decade, though distinctly abstract, tend to suggest waves of sound, water, light or seismic activity," Falsetta said. "They evoke the natural world while acknowledging the technology that measures or records it."

While he was an IAA fellow, Falsetta took the color studies he did as research for the palettes of his paintings and incorporated the studies or used them as inspiration for large-scale paintings.

"The paintings are carefully planned in regards to palette and process, but the predetermined systems still allow for a large degree of improvisations," Falsetta said. "Hundreds of on-the-spot decisions are made, with results that form a strange blend between the appearance of spontaneity and the appearance of control."

"Because the exhibition spans four decades, gallery visitors will be able to see progression of similar themes as well as the departure from those themes and advancement of others," Falsetta said. Falsetta hopes that those who view his paintings have different, individualized experiences – but also that they have something in common.

"I want to give people a visual and conceptual experience that keeps a sense of mystery about how the paintings were created so it broadens their perception of the artwork," he said. "I hope that when viewing my work they see a fresh, new way to look at and think about painting."

The free exhibition is open to the public. Gallery hours are 9 am to noon and 1-5 p.m. Monday through Friday with extended hours to 8 p.m. on Thursday, and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday. The gallery is located on the downtown square in Denton.

For more information on this and other exhibition, visit UNT on the Square online.

About the Artist

Vincent Falsetta was born in Philadelphia and received his MFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia and Rome, Italy. He was an Artist-in-Residency at the Bluecoat Art Center, Liverpool, UK, 2011 and at Brandywine Workshop in Philadelphia. He has exhibited in more than 50 solo exhibition including shows at the El Paso Museum of Art, Museum of Southeast Texas, The Galveston Art Center, Museum of East Texas, Amarillo Art Center and Indiana University Art Museum. Gallery solo exhibitions have been at Conduit Gallery, Dallas; OK Harris, New York City; REM Gallery, San Antonio; Anya Tish Gallery, Houston; Sherry Leedy Gallery, Kansas City; Hansen Galleries, New York City; Rosenfeld Gallery, Philadelphia; Soghor, Leonard & Associates, New York City; and the Reading Room, Dallas. Recently his work was shown in the 2013 Texas Biennial. Falsetta's artwork is included in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, El Paso Museum of Art, Tyler Museum of Art, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Sheldon Swope Art Museum and Brandywine Workshop.

About the Institute for the Advancement of the Arts

Launched in 2009, the UNT Institute for the Advancement of the Arts (IAA) aims to showcase, support and advance excellence in the visual, performing and creative literary arts at UNT, among its faculty members and in conjunction with their renowned colleagues and collaborators. The three central components of the Institute are UNT on the Square, the IAA Faculty Fellows program and the IAA Artist-in-Residence program.

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