University Communications and Marketing

Montana artist showcases art at MSU Billings

Jon Lodge exhibit on display from Feb. 28 to March 28

University Communications and Marketing, 657-2266

MSU BILLINGS NEWS—The Northcutt Steele Gallery at MSU Billings will unveil a new exhibit, MatrixxModulation, by Red Lodge native and artist Jon Lodge on Feb. 28. The exhibit will be on display through March 28.

An opening reception will be held on Thursday, Feb. 28 from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Northcutt Steele Gallery. This event is free, catered, and open to the public.

On Wednesday, March 13, Lodge will host an artist performance and talk in LA 128. Beginning at 6:30 p.m., Lodge will present “JPEG/MPEG Time Window Progression (Life as an Artist).” All are welcome and invited to attend.

Parking for these events is free after 5 p.m. on the MSUB campus.

The masterful work of Jon Lodge is more than a piece of art of the wall, it is a conceptual exercise of pattern recognition and a journey into universal principals. He exhibits the extensive and studied byproduct of processes extracted from the world of planned randomness and science. This is the randomness we experience on a daily basis and yet have no idea of the gravitational coordination controlling it.

The diverse, interactive and yet minimalistic approach to the work creates a subtext of awareness for the elements and puzzling realities harbored beneath fabrication, surface tension and random sequences. From work with light, to sound, to 3-D installations, this collection will inspire you to relish the very air around you and encourage you to engage with the work in a fun and immersive way.

Lodge’s exhibition emphasizes the interplay of process and material—utilizing as a starting point, planned systems of randomness (stochastic process) and including interactive, evolving elements to engage visitors as creative partners. Methodologies of music composition and print media/image reproduction merge to generate artworks that exhibit components of and connections among these disparate sources.

Born in Red Lodge, Montana in 1945, Jon Lodge left the Rocky Mountain west twenty years later to study jazz improvisation and composition at Berklee College of Music in Boston. He returned to Montana in the mid-1970s, where he worked in the commercial printing industry while continuing performing jazz. Desiring freedom from the collaborative aspects of music and more flexibility in his artistic practice, he decided to make visual art. Having worked for many years in a large commercial printing plant, he recognized that the byproducts of those processes could become his art materials.

Since his first show in a small downtown cafe, he has exhibited widely across the Northwest, including the Sun Valley Center for the Arts, University of Wyoming Art Museum in Laramie, Holter Museum in Helena, Botanica Fine Art in Bozeman, Paris Gibson Square in Great Falls, and the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings. His work is in the permanent collections of the Yellowstone, Missoula and Nicolaysen Art Museums, the University of Wyoming Art Museum and the GSA Rocky Mountain Region.

The Northcutt Steele Gallery is located on the first floor of the Liberal Arts building on the Montana State University Billings campus. The gallery is open Monday-Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. For more information, visit www.facebook.com/northcuttsteelegallery. 

Image above: Surface Tension 79 Pulse Interval Analysis