Exhibit marks retirement of Grand Valley art professor

A special exhibition of paintings by Ed Wong-Ligda, professor and coordinator of illustration in the Art and Design Department at Grand Valley, will celebrate his retirement from the university.

“Veracity, Distortion, Reduction: Visual Explorations by Ed Wong-Ligda” debuts Thursday, January 15, with an opening reception from 5-7 p.m. at the Grand Valley Art Gallery located in the Performing Arts Center, room 1121, on the Allendale Campus. The exhibit is free and open to the public, and runs through March 20.

The exhibit will feature 15 oil-on-canvas paintings created by Wong-Ligda during his time at Grand Valley. Wong-Ligda said visitors of his exhibit will follow the journeys of “multiple figure narratives” as well as “representations of solitary figures, figures with landscapes and invented landscapes based on 19th century artistic conventions.”

While Wong-Ligda has been a professional painter since the early 1970s, he began his time with Grand Valley in 1996 after being hired to develop and coordinate the Art and Design Department’s illustration emphasis. After two years of researching and writing the curriculum while teaching basic drawing and design courses, Wong-Ligda became the coordinator and primary instructor of illustration.  He will retire in April.

“I don’t think of not working at GVSU so much as retirement, but as a change of jobs, where my full-time work will be painting,” Wong-Ligda said. “The rich mix of ideas, attitudes and opinions of faculty, staff and students has definitely influenced my work. The loss of those influences will certainly affect my painting, but how — I can’t guess.”

Wong-Ligda completed his undergraduate work in advertising design and illustration at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles and received a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from the University of Tulsa. As a professional design and illustrator, Wong-Ligda has worked with clients such as Benjamin Cummings, Cheshire Books, Dell Publishing and Van Nostrand Reinhold.

His works can be found in many private and public collections including the Grand Rapids Community Foundation, Grand Rapids Public Museum, Appalachian State University, State of Oregon, State of Missouri and Grand Valley State University.

For more information about the exhibit, visit www.gvsu.edu/artgallery.

For more information about Wong-Ligda, visit www.edwong-ligda.com.