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Two Czech Artists Open “Artifice and Wilderness”

Two artists from the Czech Republic, Viktor Valášek and Conrad Armstrong, will open a joint show entitled “Artifice and Wilderness” at The Putney School gallery in the Michael S. Currier Center on Thursday, January 15, from 5-7 p.m. The show runs through March 15, 2015.

In their work, both Valášek and Armstrong are interested in the line between narrative and reality. Using a variety of approaches, they look to history, to landscape, and to society for subjects which stand out as emblems of time, place, and mindset. Ranging across styles and media, this exhibition aims to examine human understanding of our place in nature and the artifice used to justify our interaction with it.

Tim Eriksen, who enjoys popularity in the Czech Republic, will offer musical entertainment during the opening. Eriksen is acclaimed for transforming American tradition with his startling interpretations of old ballads, love songs, shape-note gospel, and dance tunes from New England and Southern Appalachia. He combines hair-raising vocals with inventive accompaniment on banjo, fiddle, guitar and bajo sexto—a twelve string Mexican acoustic bass.