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Exhibit of "Rapid Prototyped" Sculptures by Gene Felice at UNC Asheville's Highsmith Gallery

August 22, 2011

An interactive sculpture exhibit, "A Rapid Progression," by artist Gene Felice, will open September 12 at UNC Asheville's Highsmith University Union Gallery. Felice designed the forms through the process of three-dimensional modeling, and then used printers and rapid prototyping machines to give the designs solid form. This exhibit also includes an electricity-generating bicycle which viewers can pedal to power other exhibited works, and an interactive, solar-powered LED lighting system. "A Rapid Progression" will remain on display through October 4.

This series of works, "explores the way biology and technology form and adapt over time," according to Felice, who describes himself as "a living mutation, balancing somewhere between the natural and technological worlds." In creating the hybrid forms of this exhibit, Felice says he began by "studying the growth patterns of mutating, evolutionary cancer cells that are prominent within my genetic history." His representations are made using a "rapid prototyping" process that prints each layer onto packed cellulose powder, injecting it with a chemical that is very similar to superglue. The chemicals are applied hundreds-to-thousands of layers thick, resulting in complex 3-dimensional objects with a consistency very similar to wood.

Felice is director of Creative Technology and Art Center hosted by the Odyssey Community School in Montford, and has been an adjunct instructor at UNC Asheville and Ohio State University, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

A reception with the artist will be held from 6-8 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 16 in the Highsmith Gallery, which is free and open to the public. Gallery hours are 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday, and noon-6 p.m. Sundays. For more information, visit the gallery website, genefelice.com, or call 828.251.6991.