Harding is known for having different activities for students and faculty members. Besides watching movies during chapel, attending football games and enjoying donut holes and music at the Student Center every Monday after chapel, this week you can also stop by the Stevens Art Galleries to see the “Exchanging Landscapes” exhibit by David Mudrinich, an artist and art professor at Arkansas Tech University.
“Most of the time we have different exhibits at our gallery,” said John Keller, gallery director at Harding. “Our current show is Exchanging Landscapes by David Mudrinich. He is an art teacher at Arkansas Tech University. The exhibition runs through Friday, September 15.”
“Exchanging Landscapes” features drawings and paintings inspired by the beauty of the Ozark River Valley Region and the Oklahoma Tallgrass Prairie.
“The artist demonstrated considerable skill in the use of several media, including oils, pastel, watercolor, charcoal and conte crayon,” Keller said. “If you enjoy landscape painting, you will like this show.”
Mudrinich was always intrigued by a sense of place — those various characteristics that make any particular location unique.
“As far back as I can remember, I‘ve enjoyed drawing. Though everybody in my family was fairly creative, I was the only one that pursued art and art teaching as a career,” Mudrinich said.
“I currently live in the Ozark Arkansas River Valley region. Though I have lived here for nearly 20 years, the look of the landscape is still new and exciting for me, far different from the industrial steel town in western Pennsylvania where I was born. I continuously feel stimulated to understand and create work related to the ecological life of this region,” Mudrinich said.
Mudrinich first visited the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Oklahoma 12 years ago. It provided a marked contrast of open space compared to that of the hilly Ozarks. This space expanded his perception and introduced a whole new world of light and color to Mudrinich’s senses.
“These regions may have strikingly different features but they are both part of the Arkansas River watershed and share that common artery and connection of place. I try to find that unity within them and between them. In a way, I allow these landscapes to also serve as a metaphor of understanding in helping me to find common unity in the variety of people and cultures that all live within our world,” Mudrinich said.
Despite the fact that Mudrinich has visited Harding University in the past, this is his first exhibition on campus.
“I think David Mudrinich can produce one of the most beautiful azure blue colors,” sophomore Keti Kambarashvili said. “The exhibition at the Art center was wonderful. All of the paintings embodied warmth and nostalgia. I believe it was a high standard, beautiful exhibition, and I am very glad that I was a part of it.”
Written by Alexandra Regida
