Rebecca Drolen Presents Photographic Work Exploring Portraiture, Constructed Narratives, Topics of Identity

Monday, February 5, 2018

Rebecca Drolen will visit the Oklahoma State University Museum of Art this month to present an artist talk, introduce her exhibition of photographic work, and continue an ongoing collaboration with OSU students.

Drolen’s photographic work explores portraiture and constructed narratives, using the element of truth that a photograph carries in order to validate scenes. A discussion of how individuals assemble their identity is paramount to her work. She has a particular fascination with hair, and the role it plays in the discussion.  Visitors are invited to learn more during an artist talk on Thursday, Feb 15, at 5:30 pm.

The artist talk also celebrates the opening of Factory, an exhibition that explores a fictional setting where hair and other features are added to the body as a means of protection, defense, or disguise. On view from Feb. 15 – April 7, it showcases five works by Drolen and serves as a point of departure for a collaborative piece created by OSU students. The students, currently enrolled in Photography 1 and 2 taught by Andy Mattern, have been working remotely with Drolen since the beginning of the semester. The programming will continue in person during the artist’s visit to Stillwater, and the students’ final collaborative work will be installed in the museum on Feb. 28. More information is available at museum.okstate.edu/factory.

Artist Bio:
Drolen received her MFA in Photography from Indiana University in 2009. Before joining the art department at the University of Arkansas in the Fall of 2015, she worked with several institutions including the University of Georgia, Michigan State University, and Belmont University.

Drolen’s photographs have been shown in group and solo exhibitions on a national and international level, within noteworthy venues such as the Huffington Post, Oxford American’s “Eyes on the South,” the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Texas Tech University, CICA Museum in Gimpo, Korea, and the Theory of Clouds Gallery in Kobe, Japan. Drolen has had work published in various art magazines and blogs and has work in private collections as well as in the permanent collection at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana.