There will be an opening reception during the First Friday Trolley Hop March 1, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
“William Bailey: Paintings Drawings Prints – works on paper,” includes more than 30 works on paper, which highlight Bailey’s signature still life and figurative styles and illuminate his distinctive color palette.
Often considered one of America’s leading realists, Bailey works from memory and imagination rather than direct observation.
“The paintings I do are not from life — they’re made up, but they’re made up from real life situations,” he has said. Bailey strives to remove the constraints of place and time from his subjects, often by depicting multiple light sources, slightly skewed perspectives and altered scale relations. Familiar objects become more like characters that assume personalities and must interact with one another to negotiate the given space. The objects and figures become more important than any individual presence and a quiet and timeless sense of order tends to emerge.
Bailey’s work is exhibited both nationally and internationally in prominent public and private collections. Among them are the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Originally from Council Bluffs, Iowa, Bailey earned his BFA and MFA from Yale University and studied under the minimalist painter, Josef Albers. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and taught at Indiana University and Yale University, where he also served as dean of the School of Art.
The Cressman Center exhibit will run through Saturday, April 6. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; and first Friday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Admission to this and all Cressman Center exhibits is free and open to the public.