The University of Northern Iowa Gallery of Art announces its first exhibition of the spring semester, “Applied Arts Group Exhibition,” on display from Jan. 21 to Feb. 21.

A curatorial talk and opening reception will be held Tuesday, Jan. 21 at 6 p.m. in Kamerick Art Building Auditorium room 111. The event is free and open to the public. Exhibition catalogs, generously funded by the Friends of the Permanent Art Collection and Gallery, will be released at the opening reception.

This curatorial process began with thinking about pure retinal impact, and the crosstalk of art, music, life and design as common denominators.

The exhibition is curated by Midwest Press artists, UNI professors Aaron Wilson and Tim Dooley, and coordinates with “Graphic Content: A Selection of Prints From the UNI Permanent Art Collection,” a second exhibition that will be on display starting January 21 in Gallery A only. “Graphic Content” is also curated by Wilson and Dooley.

The term ‘Applied Arts’ is embraced as the exhibition title, both for the way the artliterally stakes a claim through wheatpasting, stickering, adorning and stapling itself to a community, and for the way in which the artist’s production of ephemera crosses into the territory reserved for fine art. This exhibition is a recognition and diverse representation of the artist's entrepreneurial spirit.

Artists include Robert Beatty, Nick Butcher and Nadine Nakanishi, Shawn Reed and Ryan Garbes, Suzy Poling, Christian Gfeller and Anna Hellsgård, Chloë Lum and Yannick Desranleau and Bráulio Amado.

All events are free and open to the public. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, and by appointment. The gallery is located on the main floor of the Kamerick Art Building South on the UNI campus.

For more information, please contact Gallery Director Laura Gleissner at laura.gleissner@uni.edu or visit gallery.uni.edu.