The Great Plains Art Museum will host a First Friday reception for the new exhibition "Open Richness," 5 to 7 p.m. today. The exhibit features the prints, drawings and projected animations of Catherine Meier.
Meier will attend the reception. The exhibition is open through Sept. 23.
Meier is a native of the Nebraska sandhills and UNL graduate who went on to earn her MFA at the University of Michigan. While attending her master's program, Meier received a Rackham research grant to travel to Mongolia, a country with a landscape very similar to the Great Plains. The expanse of landscape in Mongolia and in her previous experience as a truck driver through the Great Plains lent her a greater understanding of the way open spaces and landscapes are navigated.
"My work is informed and inspired by my childhood in Nebraska and by working as a truck driver throughout the Great Plains," Meier said. "The simple, subtle land of this region is beautiful to me and provides me with great peace, and yet I have known anxiety from its sheer openness. I am also intrigued by how the mind will navigate space where landmarks are few and difficult to detect."
Great Plains Art Museum curator Amber Mohr said the museum's large, open gallery provides an ideal space for Meier's work.
"The setting of the Great Plains Art Museum allow Meier to work on a larger scale, and couple her animations, which are often projected in the open environment, to be shown alongside her prints and drawings," Mohr said.
For more information, go to http://go.unl.edu/9ti or call 402-472-6220.