This new photography exhibition in the Project Gallery features new works by Steve Nyktas, Assistant Professor of Art at Butler University in Indiana. In Precursors and Remnants, Nyktas captures ordinary items in exquisite close-up detail, transforming them into the elegant and remarkable.

Precursors and Remnants opens alongside the Southwestern Invitational Exhibition in the Main Gallery with a Reception Saturday, January 9, 2016. The exhibition will remain open Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11am-5pm, through February 14, 2016.

About the Artist

Nyktas has shown his art in galleries across the United States, received several grants and awards and curated numerous exhibitions. He has an MFA in Art (2007) from Northwestern University for Art Theory & Practice, an MA in Painting & Photography (2004) from Purdue University, and a BFA (2002), magna cum laude, in Fine Arts with a Minor in Art History from Albion College.

From the Artist Statement

“Last November, the day before my son was born, there came a moment where I was folding clothes, freshly washed in preparation. I remember I got to the socks and just couldn’t believe how utterly ridiculous they were; impossibly tiny and fine. After bringing my wife back from our appointment with the midwife, and with just half an hour before I had to run off to teach class, I snapped these photos in the studio; to capture that concept I had of this little person, a person I could barely imagine and yet seemed to know in total, just before they were born.

“Similarly, I photographed a series of burnt marshmallows, dropped in the dirt. These photos were inspired by a visit with my nieces and nephews, during which they roasted marshmallows in our backyard – terribly. Eating s’mores was clearly of lesser priority than the sheer delight of burning marshmallows and letting them fall to the ground. It was one of those events that stuck with me, and so I decided to reenact it. There’s something liberating about setting out to intentionally do something wrong.”