Feb. 15, 2007

Artist’s reception to be held for MC professor’s photography exhibition
By JASON E. WEBER
weberj@marietta.edu

Currently on display in the gallery of the Hermann Fine Arts Center are selected photographs by one of Marietta College's own faculty members, Assistant Professor of Art, Todd Roeth. The exhibition has been running since Monday, January 29 and will continue until Saturday, February 24 with an artist's reception this Saturday from 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

Roeth is in his first year at Marietta College and is currently working in our popular graphic design program. Prior to taking the position at Marietta, he was an instructor at Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara and Ventura, California and has taught in New York, Colorado, and elsewhere in Ohio.

As he has traveled through the country and abroad, he has made his camera his right hand man. This current exhibition is the fruit of his devotion to photographs which he calls his “mental souvenirs.” The exhibit contains 48 black and white prints that Roeth has made over the last seven year whilst traveling in the United States and Japan. He takes the photographs with a cheap $15 camera using film that has been exposed to all sorts of elements. This is the only alteration that is done to the film.

“The material and the process used to make these images are bare, disposable, and primitive,” Roeth says. “It is purely and emotion and instinctive way to make images and remember my life.”

Roeth truly enjoys this process and plans to use it in a class that he is developing at Marietta College.

"This show is just the first few chapters," he says. "These images are the closest thing to a tangible memory as I can get."

The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public, with regular gallery hours Monday through Friday 9 a.m.-10 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday 1-10 p.m. The Hermann Fine Arts Center is handicapped accessible.

Visit www.toddroeth.com to view Roeth's work outside of this personal project.

Tom Perry, director of college relations contributed to the content of this article.