Southern and Midwest Professors Exhibit Work at California Gallery

If they had not entered the National Juried Print show last year at Asylum Gallery, 1719 25th St., Sacramento in Northern California, Dale Clifford from Atlanta, GA; Marcus Howell from Springfield, MO and Roger Mark Walton from Savannah, GA would not be displaying their fine art prints and oil paintings there until May 18^th. The three were chosen by the exhibit jurors to be the best of the artists who were accepted into the show. The grand prize for the competition was a group show in the gallery in 2008.

Clifford is a professor at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta, where he's been teaching since January 2006. This is not to say he hasn't been around the block, artistically speaking. His prints and drawings have been exhibited in twelve countries in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.

The work he is currently exhibiting is based on a series Clifford started in 2002, focusing on road kill. Beyond the formal drawing issues, the subjects' unfortunate circumstances allowed him to explore themes such as fate, luck, deception and truth and their impact on our day-to-day lives. Influenced by the escalating war in Iraq and the proliferation of social injustices by our current government, an emerging political and social narrative is evident in the most recent prints.

Howell is a life long artist who has only been showing professionally for the past 11 years. He reaches teaches printmaking at Missouri State University in Springfield. Howell also has some international credits with work which has been exhibited at University of Nebraska-Lincoln American University Cairo, Egypt, the Hayden Art Center Lincoln, Nebraska. Other shows include "Every Picture Tells a Story International Juried Show", Illinois Institute of Art Chicago Northbrook Public Library Northbrook, IL and "Ana 35: National All-Media Exhibition", Holter Museum of Art, Helena, Montana.

While Walton got into the 2007 show on the merits of a black and white etching, he is exhibiting his paintings in this group show. He currently teaches at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah. He's the recipient of awards from The Elizabeth Greensheilds Foundation, The Ohio Arts Council and The Expanding Horizons Award at Wright State University, among others. As a teacher, Walton has lectured at various venues including giving docent lecture tours at the S. R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City, and he has taught at the University of Dayton, Sinclair Community College, Savannah College of Art and Design, and briefly at North Central College. Walton also has some book credits to his name including artwork that has been published in Developing Ideas In Artwork by M. Stephen Doherty and Water-media Techniques for Releasing the Creative Spirit by Marilyn H. Phillis.