KELLER EXHIBITION TO OPEN AT THE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM

An exhibit of artwork by Margaret Keller of St. Louis will open during a reception from 4 to 6 p.m. March 3 in the Southeast Missouri State University Museum gallery.

Inspired by the great master painters of art history, Keller studies traditional paintings and creates modern versions of them. Viewers at this exhibition will see color photocopies of master works, Keller's sketches while studying and analyzing them, and her paintings as a response in her individual style.

Keller has selected 10 paintings of women by artists such as Picasso, de Kooning, Botticelli, Rubens, Degas, and Giorgione. These masters featured a nude female figure and face as the focal point around which to present a story. Keller, using the same size and composition of the masters, deemphasizes the figures of women to the point where they cease to exist as images and become colored shapes. This transformation is to show a different point of view.

Keller's paintings, which are fluid, gestural brushstrokes of bright colors, are unified like a puzzle of interlocking shapes. Viewers see color, shape, line, paint and brushstrokes before they see images in the paintings.

Keller has thought of her role as a contemporary female artist. Studying the early works of artists such as Peter Paul Rubens and Boucher, she realized that their focus on women as the subject and object was very different from her interest in showing the female figure in a subjective way and in the act of painting as well as composition.

Visitors to the exhibit will be able to enjoy Keller's work on several levels, including art history, influence of the past on present, the perspective of a female artist, formal composition, and the act of painting.

Keller, assistant professor of art, holds a bachelor of fine arts degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a master of fine arts degree from Washington University in St. Louis. She has taught college art courses at the University of Missouri-Rolla and Washington University and was the coordinator of adult programs at the St. Louis Art Museum before joining Meramec College to teach art history and studio art classes full time. Her work has won painting awards nationally in numerous one-person and juried exhibitions.

Keller's work will be on display at the University Museum Gallery though March 31.

The exhibit is free and open to the public. The University Museum is located in Memorial Hall. Hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.

For more information or to arrange group tours, call Pat Reagan-Woodard at (314) 651- 2260.