The School of Art’s Downtown Gallery will present “Recent Landscapes: Works by Doug Unger, Ben Bassham and Charles Basham” from Sept. 4 through Oct. 5 in the Downtown Gallery. The gallery will host an opening reception on Thursday, Sept. 5, from 5 to 7 p.m., which is free and open to the public. The gallery is located at 141 E. Main St. in Kent.
The Downtown Gallery is excited to highlight the works of these three talented affiliates of Kent State. Each of them has a unique and beautiful sense of the world around them. Inspired by their surroundings, this exhibition displays their recent landscape works.
Doug Unger is also a professor emeritus of art at Kent State, where he taught painting and drawing for 35 years. He studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art and the Cape School of Art, and he completed his graduate studies at Syracuse University.
Unger has won several Ohio Arts Council grants and received an Ohio Heritage Award in 2004. In 1993, he also was awarded a National Endowment Prize. As a landscape painter in both oils and pastels, Unger explores man's stewardship of the land found in the Amish Farms in the Holmes County Village of Charm, Ohio. He is an artist, craftsman and traditional musician, living and working in Peninsula, Ohio.
Ben Bassham, a professor emeritus of art history at Kent State, retired in 1999. After 30 years of teaching, he now devotes his time to his love of painting. Bassham’s colorful and realistic views of the landscape reflect his travels to diverse areas. He is drawn to the striking New Mexico deserts and mountains and the coastlines of Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. He also has traveled several times to Italy. Bassham studied art at the University of Arkansas and pursed graduate studies in art history at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. In addition to painting, he has written three books, edited two others and published several scholarly articles. He and his family spend a month of the year in Taos, N.M., and live in Kent, Ohio.
Charles Basham, Kent State adjunct faculty member, has been making art for 30 years. Basham received both his BFA and MFA from Kent State. Throughout his career, Basham has become more and more attuned to the subtle changes in weather and atmosphere. He captures dramatic and compelling moments of morning and evening light over the farmlands of the Midwest and the marshes and beaches of the low country in South Carolina. Basham resides in Ohio on the family farm where he grew up.
For more information, please visit or call the Downtown Gallery at 330-676-1549.