Gibbons is Great Plains museums' artist-in-residence

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Great Plains Art Museum will host Lari Radabaugh Gibbons as the 2017 Elizabeth Rubendall Artist in Residence.

During her residency, Gibbons will use the lobby of the museum to create an artwork that will become part of the museum’s permanent collection. Visitors are encouraged to see the artist in action during her lobby working hours.

“Rising,” Gibbons’ solo exhibition at the museum, runs through June 24.

Gibbons is a professor at the University of North Texas, where she teaches printmaking and directs the Print Research Institute of North Texas (P.R.I.N.T Press). She earned a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a Bachelor of Arts from Grinnell College. Her professional and studio work includes independent and collaborative projects exploring ideas from ecology, environmental philosophy and natural history. She has received numerous grants and awards, and her work has been collected and exhibited nationally and internationally.

Gibbons’ creative work is guided by questions about how nature is represented in print. Her multi-layered approach includes research of natural history collections and scientific repositories as well as first-hand observation of nature. Her recent interest in habitat loss and invasive species led her to use research data sets as the basis for new patterns in her artwork.

Great Plains Art Museum curator Melynda Seaton said this aspect of Gibbons’ work connects the exhibition to the Center for Great Plains Studies 2017 Symposium, “Flat Places, Deep Identities: Mapping Nebraska and the Great Plains.”

“Gibbons creates a unique form of ‘deep mapping’ by transforming scientific data into abstracted visual representation,” Seaton said.

Since its inception in 2006, the Elizabeth Rubendall Foundation has funded the Artist-in-Residence Program, which allows museum visitors and school groups to witness an artist in action.

The artist-in-residence public schedule is:

• March 3 to June 24: Solo exhibition on view, lower-level gallery

• April 18 to 22: Artist working in lobby

• April 19, 3:30 to 5 p.m.: Artist talk with Gibbons

• April 22, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.: Family art activity with Gibbons

Gibbons will return for another week of residency June 2-8.

For more information on the program, including how to schedule tours, visit http://go.unl.edu/plainsart. The Great Plains Art Museum, 1155 Q St., is open to the public 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Admission is free.