PHOTO CAPTION: Darryl Pottorf and Brenau University Galleries Director Vanessa
Grubbs during the artist's 2009 visit to the Gainesville campus.

GAINESVILLE, Ga., September 24, 2010 – http://www2009.brenau.edu/home.cfm
[Brenau University] presents the first showing anywhere of some new
multi-canvass, multimedia works by Captiva, Fla.-based artist
http://www.darrylpottorf.com/[Darryl Pottorf], a long time collaborator and
partner of pop art icon Robert Rauschenberg.

The exhibit, entitled “Links”  will be on display from Thursday, Oct. 7,
through Nov. 21 in the Sellars Gallery on Brenau University’s Gainesville
campus. In addition, Pottorf will appear at an opening night  artist talk and
reception Oct. 7, both free and open to the public, from 6 to 8 p. m. in the
gallery, which is located in the Simmons Visual Arts Center adjacent to Pearce
Auditorium on Centennial Circle.

“This is Pottorf’s second show at Brenau, and it is important to Brenau
students and our arts patrons for a number of reasons,” says
http://www2009.brenau.edu/index.cfm?objectid=5689395D-65B3-FE26-0F255E161471A0E4
[Brenau Galleries] Director Vanessa Grubbs. “He will debut some new pieces
that have not been shown anywhere else. These are particularly exciting works
with very interesting sculpturally shaped canvases.”

This collection includes a mix of multimedia and multi-canvas pieces in a
never-before-seen exhibit. The exhibit features some of Pottorf’s newest work
and, no doubt will showcase his immense talents as a storyteller.

Pottorf, bootstrapped his way into the art world. Born in Ohio, he grew up in
South Florida and financed his education studying architecture in his father’s
home construction business. He first encountered Rauschenberg’s work while
studying in Florence, Italy. That, along with other information and history he
absorbed while at the seat of the Italian Renaissance, inspired him to return
to the United States and shift his course of study to art. He enrolled in
Edison Community College in Ft. Myers, Florida, and as luck would have it,
while taking a printmaking class got a chance to work in nearby Captiva as
assistant to a local artist – Robert Rauschenberg.

This assistantship involved a lot of painting – but it was more along the
lines of what he did in his father’s construction business. His first “work”
was Rauschenberg’s garage. He also hauled lumber, “swabbed decks” and
performed a lot of other grunt work to earn his opportunity to experiment with
its own abstract art (which involved pouring black ship’s paint on aluminum
panels) while taking in and participating in the behind-the-scenes happenings
of the Rauschenberg studio. The relationship evolved, lasting until
Rauschenberg’s death in 2008, and so did Pottorf’s work.

“You work every day,” he recently told a newspaper interviewer. “Don’t try and
make everything a masterpiece. There will be good and bad pieces. If you work
hard enough, there will be masterpieces.”

In August Brenau became officially affiliated with the http://www.high.org/
[High Museum of Art] in Atlanta is the museum’s first academic partner, a
relationship that among other things, involves cross promotion of various
activities to broaden audiences of each institutions’ exhibitions.

In addition to presenting several exhibitions each year featuring works of new
and established artists from around the world, Brenau holds an impressive
permanent collection of artworks, many of which were accumulated with the
assistance of famed New York arts dealer
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/06/07/100607crbo_books_schjeldahl
[Leo Castelli], who served on the Brenau Board of Trustees from 1991 until his
death in 1999. Castelli represented Rauschenberg among his impressive stable
of important artists, which also included Georgia-born
http://www.jasperjohns.com/ [Jasper Johns], whose aunts, Gladys and Eunice,
were Brenau alumnae.

For more information about this or other exhibits and programs at Brenau
University Galleries, please call 770-534-6263 or email gallery@brenau.edu.
Brenau University Galleries and Brenau University are non-profit institutions
providing educational and visual art experiences for the North Georgia Community.
# # #
ABOUT BRENAU – Founded in 1878, Brenau University currently enrolls about
2,800 students in graduate, undergraduate and preparatory programs on campuses
and
http://www2009.brenau.edu/index.cfm?objectid=A4797E16-1AA0-2729-A310D132C5D58D80
[online]. The main campus of the Georgia-based liberal arts institution, which
includes the Brenau Women’s College, is in Gainesville with 
http://www2009.brenau.edu/index.cfm?objectid=9261C36A-1AA0-2729-A3FF88399AC503AB
 [other campuses in Augusta, Kings Bay and in two metro Atlanta locations,
Norcross and Fairburn]. Brenau’s 2011 ranking as one of the top 15-best higher
education values in the Southeast by U.S. News & World Report marks the
university’s sixth consecutive year in that position for the magazine’s
America's Best Colleges guidebook. Brenau University also has been cited as
one of the best colleges and universities to work for by The Chronicle of
Higher Education and since 2004 has been named  by Princeton Review as one of
the best colleges  in the Southeast.

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