IDAHO FALLS — The Art Museum's first exhibit of the New Year features recently retired Ricks College/Brigham Young University–Idaho art professors, GERALD GRIFFIN and MATTHEW GEDDES in The Silent Conversation. Through 30 sculpture and 60 oil paintings, the exhibit highlights the quiet relationships found in color harmony, texture, and shapes the two have created in their newfound freedom after 30-plus years of teaching.
Stumbling upon a ceramics class in college, Geddes was reminded of the clay filled irrigation ditches he played in as a child and says he spent his career "playing in the mud." "My primary subject in sculpture is the human figure. I have always been fascinated by the beauty and grace of the human form dialoging with the rich textural surfaces imparted by the clay. I never tire of this beautiful relationship," says Geddes. Many of the figures in the exhibit come from his 30-plus trips leading university students through Europe.
Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Griffin developed a passion for music, art and nature early on. He painted his first still life oil painting at age 16, but did not return to the genre until his retirement 50 years later. Since then, he has immersed himself in painting well-more than a hundred still lifes, 36 of which are currently on display.
The Silent Conversation is sponsored by Fluor–Idaho. The 2020-21 season is made possible in part by Anne Voillequé and Louise Nelson and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Idaho Commission on the Arts and the Western States Arts Federation.
Also featuring . . . The Corridor Gallery is exhibiting new acquisitions to TAM's permanent collection including lithographs by Picasso and Helen Frankenthaler. The Snake River Plein Air Painters are featured in the Studio Gallery.