OxfordPress.com

OXFORD — Being a percussionist on the side as well as an artist by profession, Larry Winston Collins, Miami University assistant professor of art, tends to find music everywhere.

Some of his recent work explores the urban rhythms of his youth in images that suggest rows of buildings overlapping in a jazzy way.

"Growing up in the city, in Cincinnati and living in Baltimore and Columbus, there's a certain kind of music that's in the air," he said. "There's a different kind of song in Oxford. It's not as busy as the city, but there are the yards and houses and cornfields that create a different kind of rhythm."

Some of the work going up this week at the Hiestand Gallery in the Fine Arts Building will reflect Collins' recent research in Germany at the Dresden Graphic Workshop as part of the International Program of the Ohio Arts Council.

"They want you to produce some prints while we're there," he said. "But we're not there very long so you can't produce a large edition of anything, so I didn't have a lot of time to spend learning anything."

So Collins created a set of collographs, prints made from plates of Masonite that is built up using various materials, a process with which he was familiar.

But once he created the prints, he took a good look at the plates and decided that they were works of art on their own, so he painted them, sometimes adding new drawings.

Early in his career, Collins worked for 10 years as a graphic artist before the urge to create his own work overcame the need to make money.

The change came when he took a printmaking class, something he had wanted to do as an undergraduate but didn't have the time.

In 1983, he won a grant to go to Africa for two years.

"When I came back I started producing these relief paintings," he said. "The themes were mostly dealing with issues that I had encountered growing up in Cincinnati. I felt like this was my voice."

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.

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