Painting by Benjamin Bridgers Click on image to download print-quality version

GRANTHAM, Pa. (Oct. 4, 2007) — Messiah College’s Aughinbaugh Art Gallery will host the unique artwork of Benjamin Bridgers, artist and assistant professor of painting at Eastern Kentucky University, in an exhibit open from Oct. 26–Nov. 20. The exhibit is free and open to the public, as is the artist talk and reception on Oct. 26 at 4 p.m. in the Aughinbaugh Art Gallery, located in the Climenhaga Fine Arts Center on the college’s Grantham campus.

Bridgers describes his artwork as “an attempt to gain an essence of personal fascination.” His paintings communicate that fascination through their depth and detail. He earned a bachelor of fine arts degree at Barton College and a master of fine arts at the Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia. Vocationally, Bridgers has taught at the University of Georgia, the University of Wyoming and abroad at the University of Georgia campus in Cortona, Italy, as well as serving as head of the drawing and painting program at the University of Redlands in California.

Located on the lower level of the Climenhaga Fine Arts Center on Messiah College’s Grantham campus, the M. Louise Aughinbaugh Art Gallery exhibits the work of internationally recognized artists from around the world, as well as faculty and students. Gallery programming supplements campus classroom instruction by bringing practicing artists to campus to demonstrate techniques in classes and by organizing special evening lectures and afternoon gallery talks. The gallery also functions as a hands-on teaching laboratory for students in the college’s course on museum studies. Aughinbaugh Art Gallery is open Mondays through Thursdays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.; on Fridays from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; and on Saturdays and Sundays from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Messiah College, a private Christian college of the liberal and applied arts and sciences, enrolls more than 2,800 undergraduate students in 60 majors. Established in 1909, the primary campus is located in Grantham, Pa., near the state capital of Harrisburg. A satellite campus affiliated with Temple University is located in Philadelphia.