Visual artist exhibit opens in Bliss Hall

The art of Tim Portlock, a visual artist who creates work in a range of media, is featured in an exhibit on the campus of Youngstown State University as part of African American History Month.

The exhibit, sponsored by the Department of Art and the Africana Studies program, runs through Feb. 27 in Bliss Hall’s Judith Rae Solomon Gallery. An opening reception will take place 5 p.m. Monday, Feb. 6 in the Gallery, after which an artists’ presentation and discussion will occur from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the McDonough Museum of Art.

Portlock was born in Chicago and was educated primarily as a traditional visual artist. He has worked in the past as a community-based muralist as well as a studio painter. His current body of work is created using 3D gaming technology to simulate real world and imagined spaces based on the abandoned and foreclosed buildings in biking distance of his home in Philadelphia.

He has exhibited at Arts Electronica, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and ISEA in Nagoya, Japan as well as other venues in Europe and North America. His most recent projects are Virtual Montmartre, a virtual cultural heritage project for the Université Paris IV and a 3D digital simulation of the Storey Institute building in Lancaster, UK. He is a professor of Integrated Media Arts at Hunter College, New York, and at Washington University, St. Louis.

Parking is available in the M30 Wick Avenue parking deck via Walnut Street for a nominal fee. Patrons are advised to watch for posted detours as construction progresses on Wick Avenue. For more information, call 330-941-2307.