Kenn Kotara Featured in "You Can Have It All"

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) February 7, 2012 -- A new exhibition, “You Can Have It All—A Group of One” is featuring selected works of contemporary artist Kenn Kotara (www.kotarastudio.com) at the Weizenblatt Gallery at Mars Hill College. The public is invited to the artist reception Thursday, February 16, from 4-6 p.m. The show will continue through March 9.

Kotara works in a variety of mediums and the exhibition will feature works on canvas, Mylar, suspended screen sculptures and ceramic sculpture. An Asheville resident, Kotara’s work is influenced by the environment of the Deep South, particularly his Louisiana childhood. While Kotara’s works are primarily abstractions, at its root the work is grounded in his observations of nature. As he sees it, “There is nature and then there is human nature, and it’s the in-between, this link, that I seek in all of my work.”

Kotara’s prolific creativity falls into numerous catergories and says, “It makes sense that the creative process not be limited to one set of categories. We need not hold ourselves to be limited by one definition. By our very nature, we are a mixture of inspiration and initiation.”

The color, shape and patterns of Kotara’s work offer a universal appeal and communicate through the abstraction in a language unique to each viewer of his work. For this reason, the artist’s work may be found in diverse venues and has been included in over 100 exhibitions internationally and is in public, private and corporate collections. His work has even appeared in the HBO series “Treme” based in New Orleans.

Ken Gregory, Director of the Weizenblatt Gallery, commented on Kotara’s work that,
“His conceptual installation and large scale pieces will take the re-defining of the gallery to new levels. Our students will greatly benefit from viewing and discussion of his work and I believe that he will expand their concepts of art and design with his mastery.” This is also a show that the public will find evocative and a very different experience.”

The Weizenblatt Gallery is on the Mars Hill College Campus that will offer an innovative new BFA in Visual Communication Design program beginning Fall, 2012. The new program is designed to prepare students for a wide variety of careers in the technology-intensive art media required for today’s visual communications and for further graduate study.

According to Dr. Rick Cary, Dean, Fine Arts and Professional Programs, Weizenblatt Gallery is taking a new direction. “We want to feature innovative perspectives of contemporary artists, preferably those whose work is seen nationally as well as in the WNC area. We hope to encourage our students, the Asheville and WNC arts communities, and others to engage with a wide variety of styles, new materials, and new ways of seeing. Nationally known artist Kenn Kotara's work is primarily nonrepresentational and crosses borders between painting, sculpture, and installation. His work resonates with echoes from modernist art history, but ventures into its own realm.”

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