Quick Navigation

Northern Illinois University

Northern News


News Release

Contact: Mark McGowan, NIU Office of Public Affairs
(815) 753-9472

September 29, 2005

New coordinator of NIU's Jack Olson Gallery
endeavors to raise its profile over time

DeKalb — Few campus visitors would guess incorrectly what building the Northern Illinois University School of Art calls home, given the assorted works in progress typically strewn near the side door along Gilbert Drive.

But Peter Van Ael, new coordinator of the Jack Olson Gallery, said he believes the school's true outward impression is found inside on the Art Building's main floor.

“Not unlike the theater stage to the theater school, or the concert hall stage the School of Music performs on, the gallery is the public's way to gain a view into the School of Art . It's the school's calling card,” Van Ael said.

“The gallery has to work on different levels. We are a forum for informal education in the arts. Our main constituency is the NIU School of Art,” he added. “Beyond this primary group, we seek to engage the broader NIU community and target the local and regional art scene. In order to reach this broad public in a meaningful way, Olson Gallery needs to schedule exhibitions and programming capable of challenging its diverse audience both visually and intellectually.”

Van Ael comes to NIU from Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas, where he was director of the University Art Gallery and assistant professor of art. He previously was director of the Talley Gallery at Bemidji State University in Bemidji, Minn., and also oversaw the university's permanent art collections.

His responsibilities here will expand next year to include teaching in the Museum Studies program.

NIU appealed to him for its proximity to Chicago, he said. Van Ael's spouse, Jessica Gondek, teaches drawing and painting at Loyola University.

His own art career began with printmaking, partially for its rich tradition in his native Belgium and partially for its ability to reach a wider audience through multiple copies, but he eventually took inspiration from countryman Frans Masereel and turned to woodcuts.

“He's one of my heroes,” Van Ael said of Masereel, who died in 1972 and is regarded as “the greatest woodcut artist of our time” by some. “He had this ability, with a black-and-white woodcut, to tell a complete story.”

Van Ael showed his woodcut exhibition “Strata” last year in Texas to explore “process as content by constantly challenging the definition of printmaking, painting and drawing, thus engaging in a dialogue between these traditional two-dimensional media and the shallow physical space of three-dimensional relief.”

Now Van Ael plans to challenge notions of the Jack Olson Gallery's stature in the region through advertising, outreach and hosting ongoing exhibitions, and to maximize use of Gallery 214, a smaller exhibition space down the hall.

He also hopes to add at least one more external exhibition each year.

“The word is not out there that we are a quality venue to see contemporary art,” he said. “We're a gallery incorporated into a school of art, and we need to involve its different dimensions into the life of the gallery.”

Professional exhibitions scheduled this year include “Bushwick Farms Presents … the Traveling Variety Show,” from Sept. 22 to Oct. 12, and “The Art of Al Souza,” from Jan. 1 to Feb. 3. Hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Other showings include the high school invitational (Oct. 24 to Nov. 6), the Black Box Special Exhibition (Nov. 8 to 11 and April 17 to 21), the BFA show (Nov. 17 to Dec. 7 and April 27 to May 11), the graduate group show (Feb. 13 to March 8) and Ars Nova (March 30 to April 13).

For more information, call (815) 753-4521 or visit www.niu.edu/art/calendar online.

# # #