Meet the Author Series with Arie Galles, Professor Emeritus and Artist in Residence
Professor Emeritus and Artist in Residence Arie Galles gave a lecture/presentation, “There and Back Again,” at the Soka Athenaeum on September 25, 2019. While the focus was his attendance at the 14th Annual International Artists’ Workshop/Symposium of Local Cultures in Stary Sącz, Poland, on July 17–27, 2019, he also spoke of his creative evolution and its connection to his childhood in Poland. The presentation dealt with the body of works throughout his 50-plus years as an artist, and the influence of his upbringing and personal and cultural memory. The works’ focus was his Fourteen Stations/Hey Yud Dale suite of drawings, his attendant book, Drawing With Ashes, and his return to the town of his mother’s youth and of the graves of his forebears. During the Symposium Galles worked with artists from France Japan, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, and Spain, and created two major paintings, POLA 1 and POLA 2 inspired by aerial views of the Galician landscape. “There and Back Again” dealt with traveling to Poland and returning to the US, and inversely, his having emigrated to the US and returned to Poland.
A Q&A period followed with engaged discussion between Galles and the audience.
Photo Courtesy of University Archivist and Photographers.