Story of Knowledge Told through Photographs in Exhibition at Kenyon College

GAMBIER, Ohio (August 13, 2009)

Marcella Hackbardt brings a series of constructed photographs examining the nature of knowledge to the Olin Art Gallery at Kenyon College.

"Story of Knowledges" opens on Aug. 13 and continues in the gallery through Sept. 26. The artist will discuss her work on Sept. 10 at 7:30 p.m. in the Olin Auditorium, and the discussion will be followed by a reception in the gallery. Hackbardt is an associate professor of art at Kenyon and has staged exhibitions and curated others around the country.

"This series of constructed photographs is a meditation on knowledge, the power of its study and pursuit, and the strength and determination involved in the ways of learning," Hackbardt said of her work. "My storytelling is staged, often with figures and objects set into spaces they never occupied. The places, people and objects in the photographs are chosen for their symbolic potential as well as for their aesthetic resonance."

The artist's wide, horizontal framing of the images evokes film, she said, as a means to suggest a continuing narrative. People cast in the photos represent concepts, and the light that surrounds them or that they carry can be seen as a symbol of knowledge.

Hackbardt's solo exhibitions include events at the College of Wooster Art Museum; the DePauw Art Center at DePauw University; the Schremshock Gallery, Columbus, Ohio; the Grant Hall Gallery at Alaska Pacific University; and the Sommers Gallery, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her projected works were performed at the 2006 and 2007 Ingenuity Festival of Art and Technology in Cleveland.

She received an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award in 2008. Hackbardt earned a bachelors in art at the University of Alaska Anchorage and a masters in studio art at the University of New Mexico.

The exhibition is free and the public is encouraged to visit. The Olin Art Gallery is in the lower level of the Olin Library, 103 College Dr., and is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Contact gallery Director Dan Younger for more information at youngerd@kenyon.edu and 740-427-5346.