ALTOONA – An exhibition of work by Alyssa Reiser Prince will be on display in the McLanahan and Sheetz Galleries of the Misciagna Family Center for Performing Arts from March 6 – April 20.
A reception will be held from 3 p.m. – 5 p.m., March 6 in the Titelman Study of the Center. During the reception, Prince will speak on the topic of her artwork and inspiration.
Prince was born in Erie and spent her childhood in the northeast and in Charlotte, NC. She has exhibited at Miami University’s Young Painters Competition in Oxford, Ohio, the Zhou B. Art Center’s Wet Paint Exhibition in Chicago, Ill., the Center for Visual Arts in Greenville, SC, the McColl Center of Visual Art in Charlotte, NC, and the NoDa arts district in Charlotte, NC, among others. She graduated from Clemson University with a MFA, emphasis in painting, and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, with a BFA, emphasis in painting, with an Art History Minor.
“As we recall moments from our past, we remember our visual experiences, the way the light hit the trees, the way in which we felt very small compared to our surroundings, or the infinite space around us,” Price says of her work. “In turn, the paintings reflect these ideas; they display a fragmentary visual structure that alludes to our senses, and emotional feelings of awareness and wonder of the experience.
“The act of remembering is an imaginative, reconstructive process. Our minds do not function as a filing cabinet, retrieving information that was stored away for safekeeping. We actively engage, change, distort and recreate our memories in every instance. Sometimes, the more we try and remember, the more distorted our memories become. Yet, they no less influence us. Our memories start to become stories we’ve told ourselves over and over again, with the narrative changing ever so slightly each time.
“Through remembering, we amplify some things: a cold touch, a sweet taste, and warmth that envelops us, while other details fall to the wayside. We remember and experience past memories under the lens of our subjective and ever changing present. Simultaneously we occupy past and present through these experiences. Time disappears and forgoes its linear quality. My paintings convey these ideas of remembering and reconstructing by depicting the partial and incomplete, referencing multiple sensations, and alluding to the ever shifting and fragmentary nature of our experience over and through time.”
The galleries are open Monday – Friday, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. and before and during all performances. For further information, call the Misciagna Family Center for Performing Arts at 814-949-5452 or visit the Penn State Altoona Web site at www.altoona.psu.edu.
