Downtown Jacksonville Gallery Hop to feature UIS professor's photography

The photography work of Kathy Petitte Jamison, assistant professor of Communication at the University of Illinois Springfield will be on display during a Downtown Gallery Hop in Jacksonville on Friday, June 3, from 5-8 p.m.

Jamison will display about 20-25 color digital photographs at downtown Jacksonville business Inner Harmony Day Spa, located at 227 South Main Street. The hop itself will feature the work of other local and nonlocal artists, music, food and fun! All sales benefit Imagine Foundation, which promotes area arts.

Jamison’s primary subject for the upcoming show is a study in hedge apples. She was inspired to photograph them last fall while shooting other photos of pre-dawn scenes.

“I picked up two hedge apples and brought them back to my house where I played with the different early autumn lighting and the textures around my house, such as concrete, rusted metal and brick,” said Jamison. “I had been thinking for some time about going for more abstraction in my photos, and I always love the play of natural light and manual maneuvers on the camera.”

Additionally, the exhibition will feature a few studies in light and abstraction of a South African seed pod, which she brought home from a safari.

“The hedge apples, of course, are local through and through,” said Jamison. “I always thought these fruit from the Osage Orange tree were alien-looking, so it's only appropriate to photograph them as abstractions in bold color and light so that they almost look like odd planetoids, in my opinion.”

Before joining UIS, Jamison was a photojournalist and long-time area reporter, columnist and feature writer for the Jacksonville Journal-Courier. As a Jacksonville resident, she has taken part in a number of art shows in area since 1991.

For more information about her exhibition, contact Jamison at 217/206-8032 or email kjamison@uis.edu.