Guilford College Art Gallery Exhibit on Peruvian Amazon Open Through April 29
An exhibition at the Guilford College Art Gallery documents life in the Amazon and destruction of the area by multinational companies. “The Road and The Wilderness: Beauty & Destruction in the Peruvian Amazon” is a moving collection of paintings, photographs, maps and video by artist David Hewson, a 1989 Guilford College graduate.
The exhibition runs from March 16-April 29, and a “meet the artist” reception will take place Tuesday, March 31 from 5-7 p.m. Both the gallery exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.
Hewson has been living in Iquitos, Peru since 2006, painting, studying shamanism and observing the dismantling of the area’s native culture and ecosystem. In addition to pieces chronicling the negative impacts of the oil, mining and lumber companies on the rain forest, Hewson includes portraits of "curanderos" (healers) and paintings of the myths and legends of the jungle centered around plant-healing shamanism.
Hewson graduated from Guilford College with a double major in sculpture and economics, and then moved to New York, where he apprenticed in the studio of Marco Grassi, an Old Master painting restoration specialist.He then spent several years in Italy, where he studied drawing at the Florence Academy of Art and later earned a diploma in conservation of paintings on canvas and wood panelat the Istituto per l'Arte e il Restauro, Palazzo Spinelli.
A practicing artist for two decades, Hewson has completed major commissions in churches and hospitals in North Carolina and Virginia. In addition to Italy and Peru, he has also traveled extensively in India.
The Guilford College Art Gallery is located in Hege Library. Its operating hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday and on Sundays from 2-5 p.m. For more information, call 316-2438 or visit www.guilford.edu/artgallery.
Feb. 26, 2009