Art Exhibition: Friday, Sept. 5 – Sunday, Oct. 5

Olin Gallery: Ralph Eaton, “Tournament of Kudzu Parade” (with photos)

Smoyer Gallery: “Acquisitions” (with photos of Brown art and Ulriksen art)

Artist Lecture: Ralph Eaton - Friday, Sept. 5, 5:30 p.m., Olin Recital Hall

Opening Reception: Friday, Sept. 5, 6 – 8 p.m., Smoyer Gallery

The Tournament of Kudzu Parade is an installation based exhibition of sculptural work by Ralph Eaton. The exhibition title is a riff on the annual Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, Calif, which employed Eaton for 10 years.

Since returning to Roanoke, Eaton has been working on and exhibiting his own art and volunteering in helping to organize, produce and contribute to numerous art and music events, including the Marginal Arts Festival, PROject proJECT, Collab Fest and FloydFest.

For this exhibition, Eaton adapts a parade sensibility to an indoor space and blends it with other sculptural processes and ideas. The result is a mash-up of lowbrow, spectacle, low-budget, DIY float construction, with a Day-Glo palette and psychedelic lighting. This is a reuse/recycling partnership between the artist and Goodwill Industries of the Valleys.

For more information about Eaton, visit www.ralpheatonprojects.com.

Acquisitions brings together recent gifts to Roanoke College’s permanent art collection

that augment the strengths of the College’s diverse holdings. These works represent the following international and nationally-known artists: Derrick Adams, Ricky Allman, Michelle Arcila, Dennis Ashbaugh, Pattie Lee Becker, Alex Brown, N. Dash, Franklin Evans, Clare Grill, Tatsuro Kiuchi, Mike Monteiro, Carrie Marill, Gary Peterson, Valerie Roybal, Mark Ulriksen, and Firooz Zahedi.