Artists from all over the country will be at Southeastern Louisiana University’s Contemporary Art Gallery for the “Fresh: New Master Artists Part 1” exhibit.

 It will be on display from October 15 to November 13. 

There will be a total of 11 artists featured in this exhibit, all of which have just received their Master of Fine Arts.

“At this point in these artists’ careers, they’ve been through graduate school, so they can really push what they’re doing and not have to think about commercial galleries yet,” said Gallery Director Dale Newkirk. “So a lot of the work is more open, more expansive and not driven so much by the market place but by ideas and what people are thinking about right now in art.”

This display will give art lovers a wide variety to view. Works using materials such as glass, photography, painting, sculpture and video will be in the exhibit. There will also be an installation art piece, where the artist builds the art right into the gallery wall.

To kick off the exhibit, the gallery will host a reception on its first night on display. The reception will be from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., food and beverages will be served and everyone is welcome.

According to Newkirk, this event is “more of a way to show our students and the community examples of what new, cutting edge contemporary art is going on in the country.” 

Selected artists were recommended by the head of their committee or advisors in graduate school. Nearly half of the featured artists will attend the opening night reception and two of them will be giving lectures.

The artists include: Louisiana locals Patch Somerville and Jeffrey Stenborn from Tulane University, Naama Hadany, Jeffrey Prokash and Kyle Conor Nilan from the Art Institute of Chicago, Matthew Yaeger from Virginia Commonwealth University, Stoney Sasser from Illinois State University, Zac Weinberg from Ohio State University, Rebecca Ott from the Temple School of Art and Roberto Celis from the University of Texas at San Antonio. 

“This is our fanfare show that we’re doing for this season, said Newkirk.” “This is the biggest event of the year for the gallery. Bringing in 11 artists from all over the country, doing different types of work is complicated. So I hope students come out and enjoy the show.”