(Delaware and Chester Counties, PA • November 16, 2017)—Delaware County Community College presents 215|610 CONTEMPORARY Juried Exhibition of Regional Emerging Artists on December 6 at the Marple Campus (901 S. Media Line Road, Media, PA). The event begins at 4 p.m. with a lecture by acclaimed artist and 2017 guest juror Odili Donald Odita in the Large Auditorium of the Academic Building. The opening reception will be held from 5-7 p.m. in the Art Gallery (Room 2305, Academic Building). 

The purpose of the juried exhibition, which includes the work of 42 artists from the Philadelphia area, is to create a platform for critical discourse through an exchange of ideas, and to push the boundaries of an age-old practice. We encourage members of the community and beyond to attend the artist lecture followed by the exhibition opening reception in an effort to provide a space to learn, observe, and experience critical issues within contemporary art.

Accomplished painter and educator Odili Donald Odita will discuss his expansive body of work and answer questions from the audience. “(His) large-scale, abstract wall paintings operate at the intersection of Western modernism and African culture. Borrowing strategies of destabilized perception from Op art—a tradition condemned by formalist criticism—and adding narrative and multicultural inflection, Odita both embraces and critiques the modernist tradition. His vast, animated expanses of fractured, rhythmic planes, equally informed by television test band patterns, African textiles, post-colonial discourse, sensory overload, and digital technology, speak to a contemporary experience of dislocation and decenteredness.” (ICA, Philadelphia) Odita has had numerous exhibitions around the world, and was included in the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007. Born in Enugu, Nigeria and raised in Ohio, Odita lives in Philadelphia where he is an Associate Professor of Fine Art at Tyler School of Art at Temple University.

This special event is part of the College’s Visual Arts Series and is free and open to the public. Reservations are strongly recommended and can be made at www.dccc.edu/gallery. The exhibition is on view from December 6 through January 11, 2018 (closed from December 23 through January 1). Normal operating hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.