PORT ANGELES — Figurative ceramic artist and musician Joe Batt’s “In the Cloud” solo exhibition will be on view in the PUB Gallery on the Port Angeles Peninsula College campus beginning Tuesday.
The exhibit will run through Feb. 8, when Batt will host a Studium Generale lecture in the Little Theater at 12:30 p.m., followed by a reception at 1:30 p.m. in the gallery at the college campus at 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
The exhibit, Studium Generale and artist reception are free and open to the public.
“This installation is a meditation on the super quickly expanding continent of WiFi technology, culture, and devices in our lives … and it is a celebration of hand-formed and hand-drawn gestural renderings of children and objects in an arranged environment,” Batt said.
“I chose children as the main characters because I feel that the unknown impact of the digital age is effectively conveyed through them.”
Originally from South Dakota, Batt received a bachelor of fine arts degree from the University of South Dakota and a master of fine arts degree from the University of Montana.
He is full time on the art faculty at South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia and also has taught in The Evergreen State College summer program, Lower Columbia College, California State University, the University of Montana and Olympic College.
“I am often confronted with the challenges of how to effectively use or accommodate new technology in my teaching and for making art,” he said.
“Recently I’ve been exploring the use of apps, drawing tablets, and other digital media in my art work and in my classes. The digital compositions in the exhibition are a result of that exploration.”
Batt has held artist in residencies at the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, Minn.; Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine; and Red Lodge Clay Center in Red Lodge, Mont.
His work has been described as quirky, friendly, mysterious and sentimental. Recent works focus mostly on 3D and 2D renderings of children navigating the Digital Age.
For more information contact Michael Paul Miller at mpmiller@pencol.edu.
