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Open Artist Studio: April Bachtel

April Bachtel will host an open studio on Thursday, April 28, from 5-7 p.m. in Woods Hall 119 at The University of Alabama. The public is cordially invited to come and see completed works, works in progress and the context where her art is created. Snacks and refreshments will be served.

April Bachtel is a part-time instructor in the UA Department of Art and Art History. She is an object maker whose practice combines sculpture, drawing and painting. She collects, studies and reconstructs leftover items from material culture such as tatted bedsheets, broken furniture and dusty knickknacks. She transforms the secondhand into anthropomorphic, empathy-invoking forms investigating objects’ histories while simultaneously providing them with a different life. She pairs familiarity and domesticity with the uncanny and grotesque to call our routines and systems into question.

 April Bachtel, “searching for Corpse Flowers,” acrylic, bedsheets, wood. Instructors & 2-Yr Grad Students Showcase, Sella-Granata Art Gallery, Aug 24 - Sept. 17, 2015 April Bachtel, “Okay to Pray,” stand base, wire, plastic, acrylic, n.d. Instructors & 2-Yr Grad Students Showcase, Sella-Granata Art Gallery, Aug 24 - Sept. 17, 2015 April Bachtel, "Ecstasy and Agony," 2015, 15 x 16 x 54 inches, acrylic on sanded and cut furniture.

Bachtel teaches courses in drawing, studio foundations, 2D design and color theory in the Department of Art and Art History at UA. In 2011, she graduated summa cum laude with a BFA in painting and a BA in art education from Kent State University in Ohio. In 2014, she received the MFA in studio art from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She also studied at Oxbow School of Art and Artist Residency. Her work has been exhibited at Roane State Community College in Harriman, Tennessee; Des Lee Gallery in St. Louis, Missouri; Tahoe Gallery in Incline Village, Nevada; and at Shift Space in Wichita, Kansas, among others. This summer she will be a Summer River Fellow Resident Artist at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia.

Immediately following the open studio, a performance by Rodger Stella (theremin & synthesizer) will take place at 7:00 pm in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery at Woods Hall as a part of Turner Williams’ MFA thesis exhibition.