Paper in Particular at 31

Colorful annual exhibition runs through March 4 in the Larson Gallery.

The 31st Annual Paper in Particular invitational exhibition, which began in February and runs through March 4 in the Larson Gallery on the Columbia College campus, is your opportunity to see striking new works in that most basic of mediums: paper.

The exhibition, which displays prints, drawings, photographs, digital images, paintings and sculpture from all 50 states and overseas, has in the past featured works incorporating such diverse materials as dried radishes and dryer lint. Art professor Ben Cameron, who mounts the show with student help each year, says the show has more color, variety and narrative this year.

"The strongest thing about the show is the use of the figure and the portrait," Cameron said. "Last year was so black and white. This year is so colorful."

Perhaps the most striking example is the huge, unsettling "Unnamed ID," by Stanley Scott, portraying a skull or flayed head in a sea of red.

The show also features such diverse works as a framed box in which thousands of slips of paper have been rolled up, resembling a seething wasp colony ("Nest 1," Megan Moore); and a triptych of three not-very-jolly pigs wearing human skull masks ("Three Little Piggies," Nancy Brown).

The exhibit is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Paper in Particular is judged by an artist of national repute each year. This year's juror is Bradlee Shanks, an associate professor in printmaking at the University of South Florida and a master printmaker. His show "Mythmaker/Printmaker" ran in the Larson Gallery last November, and his work can be found at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, the Fogg Museum in Boston and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.

Cameron says that about 300 entries were received but fewer than 70 selected for display. After the exhibit wraps, one artist's work will be spotlighted in a solo exhibit in the fall. One work also will be purchased for the Columbia College Art department’s permanent collection.