For Immediate Release

July 27, 1998

Contact: Everett Adelman

Phone: 252-985-5268

Rocky Mount, NC – North Carolina Wesleyan College invites the public to a free public reception for contemporary artist Serge Petitpré on the opening of his exhibition in the Mims Gallery. The evening reception is from 7 to 9 p.m., Wednesday, August 26, in the Mims Galley at the Dunn Center for Performing Arts. This is a rare opportunity to meet Petitpré before he leaves for Senegal.

Petitpré is a French National who lives and works in Africa as a teacher for the French Foreign Office. He and his wife Martha along with their three daughters Mathilde, Camille, and Adele spend their summers in Rocky Mount with the Harris Family.

Petitpré's art poses questions for the viewer. The artist paints and draws images of African masks onto pages of antique newspapers and books published in the 1920's when French Cubists first introduced African art into mainstream modernism. Some of his most recent images are like figurative holograms, superimposed on the fragile drawing surface of old printed material that Petitpré favors. The viewer is made aware of the fragility of the antique paper by contrasting it with the artist's modernist drawing style. It is within the elegant contrasts of style, material, culture, and timeframe that Petitprés questions emerge and invite our participation.

The Mims Gallery is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Phone (252) 985-5268.