Almost one year after showing his senior thesis, Ball State graduate Jerry Hannah returned to The Artist Within with nine original pieces for the First Thursday gallery walk downtown.
Most of Hannah’s artwork combines his love of art with his love of astronomy, a topic he said he has been interested in since he was young.
“I found a lot of concepts in space relate well with an abstraction,” Hannah said. “It’s sometimes hard to express a scientific idea… it’s kind of hard to represent in a picture.”
Hannah said he began doing abstractionism during his time at Ball State, but the most valuable thing he learned was how to communicate about art.
“I was already an artist before, I went there to learn how to interact with other artists and how to talk about my work.”
The last show Hannah had at The Artist Within was his senior thesis in July, which he presented with another artist. It followed technology advancing and getting society closer to planets, starting with looking through a telescope and ending from the view of a satellite orbiting.
Sandy Highley and her sister Lea Carpenter said they went to both of Hannah’s shows.
“We saw his first show a couple years ago and we think that he… has made progress,” Carpenter said. “Personally, I like this one better.”
Bob Hartley, co-owner of The Artist Within, said he chose Hannah’s portfolio because it was family friendly and showed talent.
“I think it shows a broad range of style and different mediums,” Hartley said. “We don’t see a lot of the charcoal and that is the kind of personal favorite. Not a whole lot of people take it to the level he did with the charcoal. It’s really pushing the medium.”
Hartley said his store has been involved with about 96 galleries in the nine years it has been open downtown, and he plans to continue supporting local artists.
“I wanted to be part of the downtown revitalization,” Hannah said. “I think we are a good thing for downtown because their needs to be more down here than bars.”
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