''Of Empires: Russian and Soviet Art'' - An art exhibition at Mattie Kelly Arts Center

Two new art exhibitions will be on display at the Mattie Kelly Fine & Performing Arts Center Galleries at Northwest Florida State College in Niceville from May 26 to July 18. Both exhibitions are free of charge and open to the public.

The “Of Empires: Russian and Soviet Art” will be on display in the Mattie Kelly Arts Center’s McIlroy Gallery and features paintings, sculptures, and fine craft from the Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union. The exhibition, on loan from the collection of Jim Rabourn of Fort Walton Beach, will showcase paintings by such Russian masters as Sergei Gerasimov and luxury home goods from the House of Fabergé and Kasli Ironworks, among others. Objects from this impressive collection tell a story of a changing political landscape in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other cultural centers of the east.

The Holzhauer Gallery will feature “Raina Benoit: The Tree Army - A Special Installation” by artist Raina Benoit who will create a site-specific installation that  will explore what it means to live and work in the Florida Panhandle, and to interact with the both the natural world and the constructed tourist environment.

Benoit works in painting, drawing, fibers, sculpture, photography (still and video), and sound to create 360-degree environments that immerse the viewer in a total art experience. Original writing is often a component of her work, as well.

Of her recent works and themes, Benoit notes, “Living in various southern coastal towns, the tourism that keeps them alive, and the nature that is carved; bulldozed, and sculpted to make these towns possible was the impetus to the last seven years of research.  This body of work is an exploration of the nature that surrounds man’s developments and the battle between these two worlds. Largely influenced by animism, mysticism, anthropomorphism, news headlines, and trash, this body of work collages narratives found from within the environment and the remnants left behind by humans, at the border between the familiar and the estranged.”

The two exhibitions are open during regular Gallery hours, Monday to Friday from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm and 90 minutes prior to most events in the mainstage theater at the Mattie Kelly Arts Center, including prior to the July 15 to 18 performances of the college’s summer musical Oklahoma!

Contact the Mattie Kelly Arts Center Galleries at (850) 729-6044 or email: ArtGalleries@nwfsc.edu for information or to schedule group tours.

The Mattie Kelly Arts Center is a $30 million fine and performing arts complex located on the Niceville campus of Northwest Florida State College at 100 College Boulevard E. and is minutes from Destin and Fort Walton Beach via the Mid-Bay Bridge and Mid Bay Connector Road or Highways 285 or 85 North. The McIlroy and Holzhauer Galleries are located in the art wing of the arts complex.

RAINA BENOIT Artist Bio: Raised in the deep South, Raina’s experience with the living past through storytelling and reenactment is extensive. Whether it is through painting, installation, video, performance, creative writing, sound, or community projects, her work investigates narrative through a poet’s lens. Raina Benoit received her BA from Louisiana State University in Liberal Arts and minored in Creative Writing (1999).  After living and working in New York City she continued her studies in France at the Atelier des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris (2001) where she studied in painting, drawing, and French. She completed her MFA (2006) at the University of Arizona where she was the founding member and co-director of Plugged Art Collective, a grass roots digital arts organization responsible for creating and hosting a biannual international women’s video festival Her Shorts and Tucson’s first performance festival PerformIT.    Other projects include writing for the New Orleans art journal The Pelican Bomb “Survival Guide” series), working with the experimental performance troupe Bricolage Bizarre. Selected exhibitions and performances include Mass Moca (North Adams, MA), Fringe 1134 Gallery (New York, NY), Ad Hoc Gallery (Brooklyn, NY),  Platform Gallery (Tucson, AZ), Deland Museum of Art (Deland, FL), 911 Media Art Center (Seattle, Washington),  C. Emerson Art Gallery (St. Petersburg, FL), The Candle Factory (New Orleans, La),  and various other international and national entities.