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Art + Design welcome visiting artist Megan Geckler

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – The Austin Peay State University Department of Art + Design, with support from the APSU Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts, will welcome internationally-known artist Megan Geckler to campus this semester.

Geckler, a site-specific installation artist based in Los Angeles, will be at Austin Peay for a week to install her newest piece specifically designed for the atrium of the new Art + Design building. She will also give a public lecture on her past projects and artistic practice at 6 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 29, in Heydel Hall (Art + Design Room 120).

During the weeklong installation, Geckler is inviting the public to help build the piece using the provided supplies, such as flagging tape, staple guns and templates. No experience is required to get involved.

“It’s also a way to build community,” Geckler said. “The repetitiveness of the stapling is akin to a sewing circle where people are creating something together, but are also able to switch their brains off and let their hands do the work. This essentially helps build community on site, where people make new friends and are a part of something (literally) bigger than ourselves.”

“She works in public spaces, because it’s the public’s space,” Michael Dickins, APSU gallery director, said. “So they’re involved. And if you can get the public involved in your projects in the public space, they understand it more. It opens up the art world to the public, who would normally pass by and say, ‘What is this?’ Now they have a concept of what it is and can tell their friends and community members and get them involved. It’s a way to use public art for community engagement, rather than just plopping it down.”

In 2012, Geckler began working with hand-dyed ropes and cords, polished and coated metals, printed glass and sublimated dye on aluminum, and other durable permanent media. Her hyper-colorful installations are equal parts whimsy and master craftsmanship, evident in her exacting process of manipulating space.

Geckler’s large-scale, site-specific installations and drawings have been exhibited internationally, including Customs House (Sydney, NSW, Australia), The Courtauld Institute (London, United Kingdom), and MOMA (Minsk, Russia). In America, her work has been featured at venues such as Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (Salt Lake City, Utah), Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus, Ohio), Museum of Art and History (Lancaster, California) and Pasadena Museum of California Art (Pasadena, California).

She has been awarded multiple public art commissions, including projects at the LAX Airport, and she was recently awarded the City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship, by the Department of Cultural Affairs. Her work is in the corporate collections of Creative Artists Agency (Los Angeles); Four Seasons Resort at Walt Disney World (Orlando, Florida); and Nike (Portland, Oregon).

For more on Geckler and her work, visit: megangeckler.com.

For more on this project, contact Michael Dickins, APSU director of galleries, at dickinsm@apsu.edu.

All events are free and open to the public.