Jan. 20, 2005 -- “Balanced on the Line,” an exhibition of recent paintings by artist Ron Clayton, will open in the Fine Arts Center Gallery at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro on Monday, Jan. 23, with a reception at 5 p.m.

Clayton received his bachelor of fine arts from the University of Utah and received a master of fine arts from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. He is currently professor of art at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, where he has taught since 1989.

During the 1980s Clayton served as a faculty member in the Department of Art at ASU. In addition to his teaching, Clayton has maintained an active show record, presenting his work in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States.

Utilizing both the traditional conventions of Renaissance perspective and a painterly affirmation of the modernist picture plane, Clayton establishes a counterpoint in his paintings between abstract and illusionistic space. The integration seems wholly natural yet, at the same time, there is a confrontation between flat and illusionistic space that is intentionally wrenching.

About his work Clayton states, “There is a well-known passage in Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past in which he rockets his reader’s consciousness across three decades and many hundreds of miles with one sensory recollection. I have never forgotten it. Proust’s intention is to allow his reader to experience two moments in time simultaneously. I try to do something analogous in these paintings.”

“Balanced on the Line” will be on display through Wednesday, Feb. 22. The exhibition is admission free and open to the public. Gallery hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. For more details, call the Department of Art at 972-3050.