Larry Stene "Larry Stene: It's Personal"

Larry Stene's work has always been personal. The works in this exhibit span his 43 years as a professor of studio art and also include his most recent digital prints and sculpture. His art has continuously reflected his lively observations and interpretations of his immediate environment-his family, multiple rescue dogs, a rural home, students, colleagues, friends, and travel. Though the intent is suitably serious and contemplative, many of the works are seriously humorous, as well. There is also a packrat element implied by multiple layers, décollage, texture and intense color, all of which is inspired by Stene's boxes of assorted treasures, including birch bark fragments, wallpaper debris, rusted sheet metal, scrap leather, old photographs, Hawaiian shirts, antique toys and photographs of peeling billboards. Throughout his 50 years of art making, Stene's work has remained both thematically consistent-often invoking age and gentle, unsolvable mysteries-and multifaceted, owing in large part to his definitive mastery of multiple materials and techniques. Stene began his art education at Minnesota State University at Moorhead and received his MFA in sculpture from the University of Illinois, Champaign, in 1973. He taught at North Dakota State University and Minnesota State University at Bemidji before coming to Washington and Lee in 1982. According to Stene, "Making art is personal-it grows and changes with time. My one-person exhibit is actually a group show-a gathering of my younger and older selves. It is about stepping back and enjoying who I am and what I make. My most recent sculpture, drawings and prints will happily share the gallery with the work of the relative neophytes."