California University has been established as a Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) location. Our upcoming exhibition is "Transitions: Photographs by Robert Creamer."

Exhibition Information

Digital technology reveals the beauty of nature in Robert Creamer’s latest work. “Transitions: Photographs by Robert Creamer,” an exhibition created by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service in collaboration the National Museum of Natural History, showcases how beauty can be found in the most unexpected places.

Robert Creamer is renowned for using contemporary digital technology to convey a melancholy beauty. “I’m challenging the traditional notion of beauty as something perfect and flawless,” said Creamer about his photographs, many of which show flowers in various stages of decay. In creating the works for this stunning exhibition, Creamer traded his usual camera for a flatbed scanner. His compositions use flora and fauna that are placed directly on the scanner in aesthetic arrangements or suspended over it. The resulting detail is eerily lifelike and yet incredibly expressive. Creamer’s subjects were drawn from the research collections at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Florida, and the Echo Hill Outdoor School in Maryland.

“Transitions” features 39 of Robert Creamer’s high-resolution images created exclusively for the exhibition. Many are paired to show a subject in transition. This exhibition also features a video by videographer Jeannie Yoon about Creamer’s scanning and printing. “My maturing imagination returns me again and again to botanicals. I enjoy exploring the transitory nature of beauty and am constantly enthused by the serendipitous understandings and new relationships that this technique reveals to me,” said Creamer.

Robert Creamer’s association with the Smithsonian began when he scanned a variety of objects and specimens at the Naturalist Center, an educational outreach facility of the National Museum of Natural History located near Leesburg, Virginia. That experience led to scans of the scientific collections housed at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

Creamer has transitioned multiple times himself during the 30 years of his professional photography career. His talents include botany, photography, natural history and teaching. He is also a widely published fine art and architectural photographer. He started using the scanner on a whim in 2002 when he found a dead hummingbird in his Maryland neighborhood. After experimenting with the bird, he continued to scan plants and animals from his backyard and those that were brought home to him by his children and even his cat. Those initial scans inspired his artistic vision catapulting him to a new realm of visual art. He began selecting material based on his intuition of how it would develop in the short time ahead and how it would look like scanned. He monitored his specimens closely looking for the exact moment that some new point of view was revealed.

SITES has been sharing the wealth of Smithsonian collections and research programs with millions of people outside Washington, D.C., for more than 50 years. SITES connects Americans to their shared cultural heritage through a wide range of exhibitions about art, science and history, which are shown wherever people live, work and play.

Gallery Hours

Monday - 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Tuesday - 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Wednesday - 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Thursday - 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Friday - CLOSED
Saturday - 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Sunday - 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Dates: December 18, 2009 - April 27, 2010

Location: Manderino Library Gallery, 3rd Floor

Gallery access is limited to the regular operating hours of the library which are found at www.library.cup.edu/l2.cfm

Parking Information

While there is still on campus parking, due to the construction schedule for the Convocation Center and Manderino Parking Garage, Hamer Lot and the lot behind Manderino Library will not be available after 4 p.m. on Friday, September 11. This will limit the number of parking spots on campus.

Additional parking will be available at Roadman Park beginning on August 31 and there will be shuttle service between the lower campus and Roadman Park beginning that week. Shuttles will run from 5:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. Frequency will vary during peak hours (every 10 minutes) and off-peak hours (every 20 minutes).

The shuttle stops at Roadman Park Lot, Manderino Library and Natali Student Center. Beginning at 7:20 a.m., the route to campus also will include stops at Vulcan Village and MMVTA Park-n-Ride Lot.

Field Trip Planning

Join us by registering your educational field trip or school group for a tour of "Transitions: Photographs by Robert Creamer." While on campus, groups can engage in various interdisciplinary activities related to the exhibition which are tied to the PA State Academic Standards. Curriculum materials related to this exhibition are available upon request. Field trip groups are able to visit the gallery outside of its normal operating hours. For more information or to register your group please complete the Field Trip Request Form and contact Walter Czekaj, University Exhibitions Coordinator, at 724-938-5244 or czekaj@cup.edu.

Upcoming Exhibitions

Beyond Baseball: The Life of Roberto Clemente
5/6/10 - 8/24/10
The Working White House
9/24/10 - 11/23/10
Beyond: Visions of Planetary Landscapes
2/25/11 - 4/12/11
Singgalot (The Ties That Bind): Filipinos in America, from Colonial Subjects to Citizens 5/20/11 - 7/19/11
The White House Garden
7/29/11 - 9/12/11
Lasting Light: 125 Years of Grand Canyon Photography
9/23/11 - 11/7/11

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California University of Pennsylvania | 250 University Ave., California, PA 15419 | Phone: 724.938.4000
This Page Last Updated: 11/18/2009 by czejak
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