Contact:
Leanne Gilbertson, Northcutt Steel Gallery Director, Montana State University Billings
leanne.gilbertson@msubillings.edu; (406) 657-2903

Artist Reception: Thursday, November 15, 5:00pm–7:00pm (Free and Open to the Public)

MSUB Department of Art’s Northcutt Steele Gallery features the work of encaustic painter Lauren Eisen from November 15 through December 13. This solo exhibition entitled “Effigies” highlights Eisen’s incorporation of found objects and natural fibers into the encaustic medium, exploring the impact of human intervention in the natural world, and its effect on native plant and animal life.

Eisen is Assistant Professor of Painting/Director of Foundations at University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. She has an active exhibition record of solo, group, juried, and invitational exhibitions and has work included in a number of private and institutional collections across the nation. She received her MFA from Tulane University in 1991 and her BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design in 1989.

Eisen’s mixed-media collage works skillfully integrate encaustic—a process of painting with pigments suspended in hot wax—with found natural and industrial materials, processed food items, and animal effigies. Her richly textured and layered works explore the relationships between landscape, architecture, agriculture, horticulture, and other aspects of industry that affect native plant and animal life. In her luscious compositions Eisen offers thoughtful reflections about our consumption of natural resources that allude to a variety of relationships between human-made structures and naturally occurring forms: inspiration and imitation, digestion and destruction, cultivation and captivity.

An artist reception will be held on Thursday, November 15, beginning at 5pm. The reception and exhibition are both free and open to the public.

The Northcutt Steele Gallery is located on the 1st floor of the Liberal Arts Building on the MSUB campus and is open Monday–Friday from 8am to 4pm. For more information visit: www.msubillings.edu/gallery and www.facebook.com/northcuttsteelegallery.

Hybridization/Reversion

Lauren Eisen, Hybridization/Reversion, Encaustic, metal, paper, grass, clematis pods, on wood, 24” x 24”, 2009.

Cadence

Lauren Eisen, Cadence, Encaustic, paper, brass wire, Tibicen dealbatus, acrylic sheet, linen on wood, 12” x 12”, 2011

Containment

Lauren Eisen, Containment, Encaustic, paper, grasses, smokebush on wood, 12” x 12”, 2012

Regeneration

Lauren Eisen, Regeneration, Encaustic, metal, paper, heliotrope, clematis pods, linen on wood, 24” x 24”, 2010