January 16, 2006

COLUMBUS, Ga. - Columbus State University's Department of Art will present '34.5 N.W.' a Jan. 21-Feb. 21 exhibition by five Auburn University faculty artists.

The exhibition, its title referring to Auburn's distance in miles and direction from Columbus, is in the Corn Center for Visual Arts' Illges Gallery in downtown Columbus. A reception is set for 6-8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 22 in the gallery. Admission is free, and the public is invited to meet the artists:

• Barb Bondy, a 2008 CSU summer-resident artist, explores through her drawings on the correlation of quantum mechanics, cognitive science and how the mind forms an individual's experience of the world. A recipient of a 2007 Alabama State Council on the Arts fellowship. Bondy has completed a residency at the Lillian E. Smith Center for the Arts in Clayton, Ga., and has exhibited her work in venues around Canada and the United States.

• Wendy DesChene, who teaches painting and drawing,has shown her work in Japan, Italy, Canada and throughout the United States. Accomplishments include the Canada Council for the Arts Travel Award, a Jerome Fellowship and residency positions at both the Vermont Studio Center and The New York Mills Cultural Center. Her largest installation, WYSIWYG , an interactive community collaboration, has toured cities in Pennsylvania, Florida, Minnesota, New York, Texas and Ohio.

• Allyson Comstock works primarily in handmade paper and mixed media to create sculptural wall works and installations. Comstock explores ideas related to the natural world, such as healing properties and ecological issues. Her work has been shown at the Ohio Craft Museum, the Delaware Contemporary Art Center and Blue Spiral I Gallery in Asheville, N.C. Her work also is in the permanent collection of the Mobile Museum of Art. She has earned fellowships from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the Women's Studio Workshop in New York.

• Debora Myles uses drawing and sculpture to explore the human experience. The marks in her drawings reflect and explore the inevitability of the human condition through beauty and transformation. Myles has exhibited nationally, including the 17th Annual Juried Exhibition in New York City the Southeastern College Art Conference Members Only Exhibition, the Bi-State exhibition at the Meridian Museum of Art and the LaGrange National Biennial XXI.

• Christopher McNulty, a visual artist, engages in task-based projects to create sculptural objects, video and works on paper. 'In my recent work, I explore the tension that exists between our ideals and the mundane reality of our lives,' he said. 'In particular, the work examines our personal desire to attain a kind of absolute, fixed state and the constant frustration of that desire by the corporeal, imperfect, and finite realities of our lives.' He has exhibited his work nationally, including the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Atlanta's Saltworks Gallery, the Mobile Museum of Art, the Rockford Art Museum and others.

Illges Gallery hours are 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 11 a.m.- 4 p.m. Saturday. The Corn Center is located at 6 West 10th St. in downtown Columbus. Parking is available in the RiverCenter parking garage on Broadway, allowing visitors to enter the Corn Center's Front Street entrance.

For more information, call 706-507-8300.