Opening reception for Wild Trees: Photo Etchings and Paintings by Lynda Frese

“Smoke” photo etching with chine collé, 2019 by Lynda Frese

Ned and the Mushroom (detail) 2019, 12×16 in., photo-etching on archival rag paper by Lynda Frese

Teche Center for the Arts is pleased to present the exhibition Wild Trees: Photo Etchings and Paintings by LYNDA FRESE. An opening reception for the artist will be held on Saturday, Feb 15, 6-8 pm at TCA located at 210 E. Bridge Street, Breaux Bridge, LA. A talk with the artist will happen Thursday, April 2, 6-7:30 p.m.

The collage artworks feature photographs from the dense jungles of Costa Rica, the ancient woods of northern Italy, the Grand Tetons of Wyoming, and the old-growth redwood forests of California—places the artist has photographed for years. But the most frequent subject is a habitat Frese has been photographing for over three decades: the cypress groves of Lake Martin.

Of these works Frese says, “There is a conversation about wilderness in these pieces—the way nature speaks to us, and the recognition that our survival depends on how we listen to what she is saying.” Frese speaks about, and to, the natural world, examining the ethical and spiritual dimensions of our relationships with nature and its ecosystems.

As a longtime photographer and painter, Frese wanted to revisit printmaking, which she studied in the 1970s as an undergraduate at the University of California, Davis. In the Wild Trees collection, the artist employs a printmaking process made possible by advances in digital technology, in which photographic images can be exposed and etched onto metal plates using non-toxic methods, then inked and printed onto cotton rag papers. This exhibition presents Frese’s contemporary collage imagery in a new medium.

The exhibition Wild Trees: Photo Etchings and Paintings by LYNDA FRESE will be on view February 15 – April 4 at the newly renovated Teche Center for the Arts, 210 E. Bridge Street, Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. Please join us for an opening reception Saturday, February 15, 6-8 pm.

The artist will present a talk about her work, free and open to the public, at the Teche Center for the Arts on Thursday, April 2, 6-7:30.

Wild Trees: Photo Etchings and Paintings is generously supported by an ArtSpark grant, as administered by the Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette, Louisiana, and LEDA (Lafayette Economic Development Authority); an Individual Artist Funding Program to directly support artists in Acadiana, to expand their bodies of work as a professional, and to offer outreach to the community.

About the artist:

Lynda Frese is Professor Emerita at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, where she taught photography for 30 years. Since 2016, she has been a full-time studio artist working in Breaux Bridge and northern and central Italy. Her work has been shown across the US, South America, and Italy, and is found in both private and public collections, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Houston Museum of Fine Art, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. The Hilliard University Museum in Lafayette mounted a 40-year retrospective of the artist’s work in 2018, entitled Holy Memories and Earthly Delights, accompanied by a monograph published by UL Press.

Teche Center for the Arts aims to serve as the principal cultural, arts, music, education, and historical center for residents and tourists of Saint Martin Parish and beyond. TCA presents music, art, theater, literary arts, and showcases the rich Cajun and Creole cultures of Acadiana that attracts visitors the world over. A focus at TCA is teaching children the arts and the French Cajun and Creole language of the region. TCA began to offer programs in 2014 in historic downtown Breaux Bridge’s 1940s-era movie theater variously known as the Dan and the Murphy “The Murph” Theater. It’s now home to stellar art exhibitions, concerts, an array of summer camps, including Robotics, Cajun and Creole cooking, French lessons using songs and games, and theatre arts, and Treble on the Teche music camp.

For more information contact TCA at (337) 442-1915 or info@techecenterforthearts.com