HARRISBURG, Pa. – Two- and three-dimensional paintings that ring with the spiritual energy of beings from folklore and imagined tales by internationally known artist Claes Gabriel will be on display Jan. 17-Feb. 10, 2023, in the Rose Lehrman Art Gallery on the Harrisburg Campus of HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College.
Gabriel will give a free lecture on his work and the exhibit, Painted Compositions and Forms, on Feb. 9 at 6 p.m. in Room 214 of Whitaker Hall with a reception to follow in the Rose Lehrman Art Gallery.
Inspired by modernists such as Frank Stella and Sam Gilliam, Gabriel’s three-dimensional works live beyond the confines of a flat wall; he stretches and sews canvases taut over wooden framework to construct masks and free-standing statues.
Gabriel is a Philadelphia-based artist who immigrated from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in 1989. He earned a BFA in painting and sculpture in 1999 from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland. Gabriel’s first influence was his late father, classically trained painter Jacques Gabriel, whose lush images of peasant life in Haiti depicted the commonplace in the vibrant, modernist language of the extraordinary.
Gabriel has exhibited in Port-au-Prince; Baltimore; Washington, D.C.; and Paris, France. His work is included in the permanent collection of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.
The gallery received state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and from the National Endowment for the Arts.
For more information about the exhibit at HACC, please contact Shawn Williams at 717-780-2478 or smwillia@hacc.edu.
Photo Caption: Paintings by Claes Gabriel will be on display through Feb. 10, 2023, at the Rose Lehrman Art Gallery on HACC’s Harrisburg Campus.
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