Jim Lutes Painting Exhibition Opens Feb. 19 in Galleries

An exhibition of paintings and drawings by Jim Lutes, professor of painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a former Illinois State University art faculty member, will open Tuesday, Feb. 19, in the University Galleries.  The opening reception will be from 5 to 7 p.m. Feb. 19 and Lutes will present a lecture on his work at noon Tuesday, Feb. 26.  Admission is free to the exhibition and the lecture.

Lutes was at Illinois State from 1995 to 1999 and the exhibition will feature his work from those years until today.  His paintings intertwine representational elements and abstract markings.  Images of landscapes, interiors and figures are overlaid with abstracted networks of painterly swirls or cartoonish blobs which, at time, all but obscure the painting underneath.

Lutes has exhibited extensively in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., as well as in Brussels, Belgium and Germany.  His work has been included in the Whitney Biennial, the Corcoran Biennial and Documenta IX.  He also has had solo and group exhibitions in Chicago.

University Galleries, located in the Center for the Visual Arts on the south end of campus, is open Saturday, Sunday and Monday from noon to 4 p.m.; 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday; and 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday.