The Department of Visual Arts Marais Press well welcome internationally recognized printmaker Oscar Gillespie to campus on October 31 - November 4th. While in the Department of Visual Arts, Oscar will be working in the Department's printmaking concentrations's Marais Press, a professional printmaking editioning press, located in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. The Department's printmaking studio and Marais Press is located in Fletcher Hall room 301. Additionally, Gillespie will be presenting a lecture on his personal work on November 2nd at 11:00 in Fletcher Hall room 301. All students and the general public are invited to come visit and watch the production of Marais Press's latest project and attend the public lecture.

Oscar J. Gillespie is a Professor of Art at Bradley University, where he has been a member of the faculty since January of 1986. He teaches printmaking and drawing. As a printmaker, he is noted for his expertise in monotypes and in intaglio, especially metal-plate engraving.

Exhibiting widely since 1974, he has shown his work in more than 300 solo, group, invitational and juried exhibitions. His work may be found in more than 60 public collections, including the Fogg Museum, Harvard; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Denver Art Museum; the Lauren Rogers Museum, Laurel, Mississippi; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, the New York Public Library; the Plains Museum, Fargo, North Dakota; and the National Museum of Posnan, Poland.

Marais Press, coordinated by Brian Kelly, Professor of Printmaking, invites prominent local, regional, national and international printmakers and artists to UL-Lafayette to collaborate with students in both the printmaking and visual arts program in the research, use, and experimentation of new and alternative printmaking techniques and processes that are developed within the printmaking program. The end result of this collaboration is the production of a completed printed edition, or body of work, and provides students with real hands-on experiences that are marketable in both the collaborative fine art and commercial printing environments. This unique relationship has produced collaborations with over 200 national and international professional artists along with faculty within the Department of Visual Arts and the College since 1999. Printed editions produced at Marais Press have been exhibited throughout the United States, Poland, Canada, Japan, China, South Korea and Mexico and presented in research presentations about printmaking at universities and printmaking workshops throughout the United States, Mexico, Canada, and Brazil.

This event is funded through funds provided by Marais Press, the Department of Visual Arts printmaking student group PRESS, and the UL Lafayette Lyceum Fund.