‘LIGHT’ exhibition explores art, learning and the ways we see the world

CENTER VALLEY, Pa. — Light can illuminate a room, change the way we see an object, or transform the colors of the world around us. It also can suggest weight, knowledge, truth and discovery.

Those different interpretations are at the center of “LIGHT,” the fall exhibition at Penn State Lehigh Valley’s Ronald K. De Long Gallery, which brings together five artists working across a range of media and artistic practices.

The exhibition, featuring Nestor Armando Gil, Lori Hepner, Corinne Lalik, Susan Morelock and Jill Odegaard, will run from Sept. 1 through Dec. 11. An opening reception will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 23, at the gallery.

“'LIGHT' gives us an opportunity to take a concept everyone understands and show just how differently artists can interpret it,” said Ann Lalik, gallery director. “Each artist approaches light from a different perspective, and when those works are brought together, they create connections and conversations that we could not experience by looking at any one of them individually.”

The exhibition explores light from both literal and metaphorical perspectives, including physical illumination, weight and ideas of intellectual or spiritual enlightenment. Through photography, light painting, fiber, multimedia works and other forms, the artists invite viewers to consider their own understanding of a seemingly familiar concept.

For Lalik, that accessibility is an important part of bringing the exhibition to Penn State Lehigh Valley.

“One of the things that makes an exhibition like 'LIGHT' exciting is that you don’t need an art background to experience it,” Lalik said. “Everyone has a relationship with light. The artists give us different ways to think about something that is already part of our everyday lives, and that can be a wonderful entry point into experiencing visual art.”

Art as part of student success

Enhancing student success is a key priority across Penn State, with a focus on creating opportunities and experiences that help students thrive academically, personally and professionally. At Penn State Lehigh Valley, the arts contribute to that broader effort by encouraging students to engage with new ideas, consider different perspectives and develop creativity, curiosity and critical-thinking skills that can extend across disciplines and beyond the classroom.

The artists participating in "LIGHT" also see engagement with the arts as an important part of education, including for students who may never take a studio art course.

Hepner, a professor of integrative arts at Penn State Greater Allegheny, recalled previously bringing robot light painting into a Penn State Lehigh Valley mathematics class. Students used light to visualize spatial and computational problems they had been studying during the semester.

“Art gives people a way into their own thinking that does not look like the thing they are afraid of failing at,” Hepner said, “and it insists there is no single correct answer, only a decision you make, look at, and revise.”

Hepner’s work in "LIGHT" builds upon a practice she calls “Drawing with Light,” in which photographs of the sky are replayed through wearable, programmable LED arrays and redrawn through the artist’s movement during a long photographic exposure. Her work is held by the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and the Carnegie Museum of Art, among other collections.

Odegaard, professor and chair of the art department at Cedar Crest College, said encountering art encourages students to move beyond familiar ways of thinking.

“Art plays a role in student success as it invites students to take on new challenges either in making artwork or engaging with what might be unfamiliar artwork in a gallery setting,” Odegaard said. “While success results from stepping outside of our boundaries to explore something new, art pushes boundaries.”

Morelock sees a similar connection between art, curiosity and learning.

“Art forces you to slow down, pay attention, and sit with the possibility that you might not know an exact answer,” Morelock said. “Art directly invites uncertainty, self-expression and connection.”

Those skills, she said, extend far beyond an exhibition or art classroom.

“This kind of curiosity can be practiced, and is invaluable far beyond the gallery walls,” Morelock said.

Gil, who teaches studio art at Lafayette College, sees artistic practice as valuable even for students pursuing disciplines seemingly far removed from the arts.

“It may have nothing to do with your major, but it has everything to do with your major,” Gil said. “The trick is to bring your life into the studio, and the studio into your life.”

An invitation to experience art

The artists also hope "LIGHT" will encourage people who may not consider themselves regular gallery visitors to experience the exhibition.

“You do not need to know anything about art to walk into this exhibition, because you already know the sky,” Hepner said. “You have looked up at it while waiting for someone, you have watched weather come in, you have used it to mark that a day was ending.”

Gil takes an equally expansive view of who can connect with the exhibition.

“We only think we don’t engage with the visual arts,” Gil said. “Art is always everywhere.”

Corinne Lalik, an Allentown-based artist, designer and co-founder of Holly Jean Studios, said the universality of the exhibition’s central idea provides another way for visitors to connect with the work.

“Light is crucial to our existence,” Lalik said, encouraging visitors “to take a moment to think about light in all of its capacities” and experience it in a more tangible and expressive way.

Her works in the exhibition include cyanotypes that began as an opportunity to experiment with a new artistic process.

For Morelock, whose work engages photography, video and writing, the invitation is similarly simple: look closely.

“You don’t need a degree or special training to stand in front of an artwork; to really slow down and look at it — to notice what it brings to mind,” Morelock said.

Her photographs grew from reading to her daughter at night and hearing her repeatedly ask, “What’s this?” The resulting project turns attention toward ordinary objects and the visual clutter of everyday life.

Creating connections through the arts

Beyond the individual works, "LIGHT" is intended to create opportunities for interaction among artists, students and members of the Lehigh Valley community.

“Exhibitions like 'LIGHT' make the gallery a place for learning, but also for conversation,” Ann Lalik said. “Our goal is to bring artists, students and community members into the same space, give them opportunities to encounter something new and create connections through those experiences.”

Odegaard will extend that idea beyond the gallery through a fall residency at Penn State Lehigh Valley focused on textile art and community engagement. As part of the residency, participants will work together to create a site-specific weaving for the campus library using recycled fabrics and exploring sustainability, teamwork and interconnectedness.

Odegaard will discuss her “Woven Welcome” projects during an artist talk from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 14. Weaving sessions will continue throughout the fall semester.

The artists said supporting the arts does not need to end when an exhibition closes.

“Keep showing up,” Hepner said, encouraging community members to attend exhibitions and openings, introduce others to local galleries and purchase work from living artists.

Morelock said exhibitions such as "LIGHT" make art “a local, shared experience rather than something that happens in big cities to other people.”

Corinne Lalik encouraged people not only to visit local galleries and museums but also to try making art themselves by taking classes and experimenting with unfamiliar creative processes.

Gil offered perhaps the simplest advice for continuing to support the region’s artists: “Stay tuned in. Join mailing lists. Go to everything. Collect art.”

“LIGHT” will be on display Sep. 1 through Dec. 11 in the Ronald K. De Long Gallery at Penn State Lehigh Valley. The opening reception will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 23. Additional artist talks and programs will be announced during the fall semester.