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HARTSVILLE, S.C. – April 1, 2011 – An exhibition of “Interrogate,” a series of paintings by Art Professor Jim Boden, will open at the Lake George Arts Project’s Courthouse Gallery in Lake George, N.Y., with a public reception on May 7 from 4 to 6 p.m.  The exhibition will continue through June 10.

“At first glance, Boden’s small oil paintings on mylar appear to be beautiful expressive studies of the human form.  On closer inspection, as the titles reveal, the viewer realizes they are a witness to a crime,” said Courthouse Gallery Director Laura Von Rosk.  “This series of paintings, ‘Interrogate,’ exposes the horrors of the humanitarian crime of torture. The distorted figures, the claustrophobic spaces, and colors of bruised flesh, are a bold, unflinching examination of victims caught in a nightmare.”

The series, 75 pieces painted in 2009, is not based on particular photographs (such as the now infamous images from Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison in 2004).

“These paintings are my personal response to the fact that the U.S. allowed and condoned the use of torture in its interrogations of military prisoners,” explained Boden.  “The series was complete when I’d said what I had to say.”

“On one level, Jim Boden’s interrogation paintings reinforce what most of us know about torture from the written accounts, photographs and videos,” said Larry Merriman, who directs the Cecila Coker Bell College Art Gallery.  “On another level, Boden’s disturbing images are more visceral and personal than documentary evidence. In other words, Boden’s paintings close a disconnect that exists between our awareness of torture and the actual experience of torture.

“Jim Boden’s paintings break the disconnect between knowledge and reality by focusing our attention, our emotions, and ultimately our intellect, on what the victims must feel when strapped to a chair and lost in some distant chamber.

“His paintings convert the viewer’s intellectual abstraction of torture into a terrifying reality: what it might feel like to be next in line,” Merriman added.

Boden received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Cincinnati and a Bachelor of Science degree in art education from the University of Minnesota. His work was included in recent group exhibitions at the Cecelia Coker Bell College Art Gallery; 440 Gallery, Brooklyn, N.Y.,; the Florence Art Museum, Florence, S.C.; and solo exhibitions at the Rabold Gallery, Aiken, S.C.; and Black Creek Arts Council Gallery, Hartsville, S.C. His awards include First Place at StateWide, Florence Art Museum, Florence, S.C., and First Place and Purchase Award at Drawing From Perceptions - Biennial Drawing Exhibition, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio.

The exhibition will also include new works by Alison Denyer, an artist and professor with the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.  Using materials that create reflective surfaces, such as graphite on black paper, Denyer creates images that change depending on the angled viewed and uniquely address the current and ever-changing environmental concerns presented by many of the world’s major river deltas and bodies of water.

The Lake George Arts Project’s Courthouse Gallery annually presents five to seven exhibitions of regional and national contemporary visual artists in all media with preference given to work created within the last two years and to experimental or non-traditional work.

The exhibition is funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. The Courthouse Gallery hours during exhibitions are Tuesday through Friday 12 to 5 p.m., Saturday 12 to 4 p.m. , and all other times by appointment.  The Courthouse Gallery is located at the side entrance of the Old County Courthouse on the corner of Canada and Lower Amherst Streets, Lake George, N.Y.  

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Coker College readies undergraduates for personal and professional success through a distinctive four-year program that emphasizes a practical application of the liberal arts as well as hands-on and discussion-based learning within and beyond the classroom. Coker is ranked among the “Best Colleges” in the South by U.S. News & World Report as well as The Princeton Review. Located in Hartsville, S.C., Coker is within two hours of the cultural, financial and recreational resources of Charlotte, Columbia, Charleston and Myrtle Beach.