FSU’s Roper Gallery to display exhibition by three new visual arts faculty | Community

FROSTBURG — Frostburg State University’s department of visual arts will host “Pleasant Terminal,” a show by three new faculty members in the department — Ash Lester, Alena Mehi and April Wright.

The display will open with a reception Nov. 5 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Stephanie Ann Roper Gallery in the Fine Arts Building. The exhibition, which is free and open to the public, will be on display through Nov. 19.

Originally from northern New York, Lester is an interdisciplinary artist, focusing on sculpture and installation, who creates her work through the use of iconography, symbolism and material choices from lower-class communities. Rural ingenuity and the need to invent are major themes, and the work she creates is a reflection of and influenced by her experience as a lesbian in rural America.

Lester touches on issues such as class, isolation and stereotypes while simultaneously exposing and celebrating those communities and their often cliched cultures. She received her master’s from the University of South Florida in Tampa and is a lecturer at FSU whose areas of interest include sculpture, installation, assemblage and ceramics.

Mehi, drawing from the post-socialist landscape of and attitudes about the former Yugoslavia, analyzes collective memory politics and the archive. Creating in-between spaces, she concentrates on objects, architectural features, political photographs and embroidered words to mimic the geographic and political placement of a departed country. Mehi earned her master’s from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A lecturer in the department, her areas of interest are drawing, printing and printmaking.

Wright is a visual artist from Germantown, Tennessee. Working in sculpture and installation art, she uses humble, everyday materials to connect personal narratives about home, relationships, memory and identity. Wright earned her master’s in art studio with a focus on ceramics and fibers at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. She teaches foundations in art as a lecturer at FSU.

The Roper Gallery is open Monday through Friday from 1 to 5 p.m. For more information, contact the department of visual arts at 301-687-4797.

FSU expects masks to be worn indoors when in the presence of others, regardless of vaccination status. Visitors to campus must visit www.frostburg.edu/checkin for symptom monitoring. Visit www.frostburg.edu/COVID19 for the most up-to-date guidance.