'Legends and Topographies' exhibit Sept. 20

North Idaho College and the Citizens' Council for the Arts are hosting "Legends and Topographies," an exhibit of digitally created artwork by Idaho artist Pete Grady now through Sept. 20 in the Corner Gallery in NIC's Boswell Hall. There will be a closing reception and artist lecture at 1 p.m. with the location to be announced.

Remarkable for their large scale and imposing presence, Grady's photo-montages combine images from popular culture, family snapshots and the artist's landscape photographs to create a poetic, personal universe. Discordant and often perplexing, Grady's pictures are capable of conjuring up complex emotions while entertaining the viewer visually with their high-impact color and odd juxtapositions of shape and subjects.

"In making this work, each of these photo-montages starts with a question about who I am or what I've experienced in my life. They progress like a journey or a conversation, each new element coaxed out by the images that came before it. Despite realizing that a particular work is finished, I may not fully understand its meaning until days or weeks later," Grady said.

Grady has exhibited widely in the Northwest. He attended Pasadena City College and the University of California, Irvine, before moving to Boise, where he finished his bachelor of fine arts in drawing at Boise State University. He brings the sensibilities of a painter to these photo-montage works and draws heavily on photographic expertise from his day job as a commercial and editorial photographer in the Boise area.

The exhibition is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Idaho Commission on the Arts. The exhibit helps fulfill CCA's mission to encourage, promote and support the arts in the community and continues their charter to coordinate with NIC to bring contemporary art to the Corner Gallery.