Baton Rouge Gallery features Betts, Delony, Jahnke and Kelly in March

Beginning on Feb. 28, Baton Rouge Gallery – center for contemporary art (BRG) will feature the work of four of its artist members: Judi Bets, Mary Claire Delony, Ross Jahnke and Brian Kelly. The exhibition will run through Mar. 25, 2010.

A First Wednesday Opening Reception for these four Artist Members and their work will be held on Wednesday, Mar. 3 from 7-9 p.m.

Judi Betts has been one of Baton Rouge Gallery’s longest-standing Artist Members, having joined the Gallery in 1969. Betts has achieved a strong international reputation for her transparent watercolor paintings. Her combining of articulate design, solid technique and vibrant colors has led to a number of award-winning paintings. She holds an Artium Baccalaureus from Indiana University of Fine Arts and a Masters of Education from Louisiana State University. She is a member of the National Watercolor Society and is in demand as an instructor, lecturer and juror. Betts has also developed workshops taught internationally and has given invitational sessions for watercolor societies in Norway, Puerto Rico, Sweden and Canada. Her work has appeared in various books and magazines in addition to the two award winning books she herself has penned: Watercolor…Let’s Think About It! (5th Printing) and Painting…a Quest toward Extraordinary.

WATERCOLOR…Magical Shapes, Betts’ exhibition at the Baton Rouge Gallery will showcase her knack for luminous and boisterously crafted works on paper.

Having joined BRG as an Artist Member just last year, Mary Claire Delony is one of the Gallery’s newest Artist Members. Her paintings depict stories that embody joy, happiness and passion, constructing metaphors based on personal myths and inspired by the classics of literature, storytelling and music. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from the New York Studio School and a Bachelors of Fine Arts (Painting) from Louisiana State University. During her time in New York City, Delony studied under artists Bill Jensen, Carl Plansky, Carol Robb and John Newman. Delony has participated in juried exhibitions in New York State and Louisiana and has contributed to public art auctions. She is currently a Talented Visual Art Teacher with East Baton Rouge Parish as well as an Adjunct Faculty member with the LSU School of Art. She also completed a residency at the International School of Paintings, Drawing and Sculpture, Montecastello di Vibio in Umbria, Italy.

Delony’s sophomore exhibition at BRG, Once Upon a Time, is a quirky and celebratory exploration into the rich history of narrative paintings. Always with an explosion of happiness, her female characters in these large works are saturated with both traditional and personal themes. Whether decked out in gold or aqua, each painting is a statement about the artist’s own joy of making and telling stories.

An Artist Member of BRG since 1992, Ross Jahnke’s work focuses on traditional oil paintings combined with screen printing. What unifies all the works is his consistent conceptual approach to the figure and screen print as a tool to invigorate and delineate space. He earned his Master of Fine Arts (Painting & Printmaking) from Louisiana State University and a Bachelors of Fine Arts (Painting & Drawing) from the University of Wisconsin. Jahnke is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Nicholls State University and teaches printmaking, drawing and papermaking.

Recent Work, Ross Jahnke’s BRG exhibition during the month of March, includes paintings and prints of everyday objects. One recent addition to the artist’s working style is works drawn or painted by candle light. Enticed to try the technique by his colleague Gaither Pope, Jahnke has enjoyed the challenges and the results of this unique approach.

Brian Kelly joined Baton Rouge Gallery as an Artist Member in 1999, having received a Bachelors of Fine Arts (Printmaking) from Northern Illinois University and a Masters of Fine Arts (Printmaking) from Louisiana State University. Following his graduate degree, Kelly studied non-toxic intaglio techniques at Frogman’s Press at the University of South Dakota and plate, photoplate, and waterless lithography at the Tamarind Institute of Lithography at the University of New Mexico. Kelly also spent one summer in San Paulo, Brazil at the GLATT/MAGOS Atelier. Since 1999, Kelly has taught printmaking in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. From that time Kelly has coordinated the Marais Press and, in 2004, became department head for the Department of Visual Arts, holds the rank of Associate Professor and is the Coca-Cola/BORSF Endowed Professor. He has published and been reviewed in over 27 publications, received numerous artistic and research grants in addition to curating and organizing numerous exhibitions throughout the state of Louisiana.

Kelly’s exhibition at BRG, Recent Prints, takes the viewer on a journey into the unseen and the unknown. His work draws on influences from environments in Louisiana, Utah, New Mexico, Montana and Colorado. These representational narratives talk about specific experiences and places that are both social, personal and political in nature. Kelly adopts and personifies animal forms as specific characters within these narrative events to speak metaphorically about personal and social issues.