“Crystal Wagner: Immersion” opens on November 7 and Wagner will present an artist’s talk on November 6 at 6 p.m. in the Rosemary Berkel and Harry L. Crisp II Museum at Southeast Missouri State University’s River Campus.
An opening reception is scheduled from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on November 7. The exhibition’s installation, specially made by Wagner for the museum, is composed of a mix of colors and textures.
Wagner combines various processes in her installations, such as screen printing, relief printmaking, drawing, collage and so forth.
Until recently, Wagner was an art professor at Georgia College and State University. She now is a full-time artist. She said she studied art in college because she “wanted to know what art is.”
“I’ve been trying to be an artist pretty obsessively since I was four years old. I think that when you are remarkably passionate about something that it’s like the thing you want forever and I’ve been working on doing it and speaking that language since I was four,” Wagner said.
She said her canvas is the room she puts her installations in and that she wanted to immerse people in the space. Wagner has been touring the country for the past few months and in each place that she exhibits, the installations change and are entirely built on the spot.
“When I got here I started thinking about how square the room was, how tall it was and how it was a real opportunity for me to kind of explore the center of the space,” Wagner said..
She said the idea behind this immersion is to explore the synthesis between people’s everyday experiences with their modern landscape and the natural world.
During her artist talk she will explain the concept behind her work and said she hopes to evoke a sense of wonder in people.
“I”ll talk about my inspirations and influences, and a little bit of my evolutions through printmaking into sculptural forms into three dimensional installation pieces,” Wagner said..
Crystal Wagner’s exhibition will run through January 25.