Sculptures, drawings on display inside Creative Arts Center

A collection of sculptures and drawings by Richard Rezac is now on exhibit in the Laura Mesaros Gallery at the West Virginia University Creative Arts Center.

Opened Oct. 11, the gallery showcases an assortment of Rezac’s work produced 2003-12.

Viewing is free and open to both students and Morgantown residents; all you must do is ask for the door to be unlocked.

Rezac is a world-renowned sculptor whose work has been featured in many galleries and showrooms.

Such places include the Portland Art Museum, the Hoffman Gallery of Chicago and the Kunstverein Recklinghausen of Germany.

As part of his achievements, he’s also been awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, the Rome Prize Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, in addition to other acknowledgments.

He is also a professor of sculpture at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

The work at the CAC showcases Rezac’s usual abstract style, but it doesn’t exactly leave the viewer hanging.

Through a consistent use of pink, white and chrome, Rezac creates a manufactured sensibility that riffs on the Art Deco movement.

In many ways, the work is minimal.

Rectangularity overpowers the collection and in conjunction with the shape, most pieces incorporate a variety of materials – from aluminum and bronze to cherry wood and polyurethane – to further conceive this notion of the assembly line.

The materials themselves also play a part in Rezac’s big picture. His selection of materials certainly shouldn’t be overlooked, as they all seem to speak to a certain concern.

Aside from the sculptures, a few drawings by Rezac line a gallery wall.

These pieces are also rectangular in nature, and they tend to resemble blueprints or even the compass rose.

The collection will be on display at the CAC until Dec. 6.

For more information on Richard Rezac, visit www.richardrezac.com.