Coker College’s Cecelia Coker Bell Gallery presents an exhibition by Kristine Thompson titled, “Touching Pictures,” with a reception, which is free and open to the public. The exhibition begins on Monday, February 5, 2018 at 7 p.m. and light refreshments will be served. Thompson’s show will continue through March 2, 2018.

Kristine Thompson received her B.S.
​from the ​School of Education and Social Policy with an emphasis in visual art, art history and sociology at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. She received her M.F.A. in Studio ​Art from the University of California in Irvine, CA. She is currently an Assistant Professor in Photography at Louisiana State University.

Kristine Thompson’s images are made by pressing light sensitive paper against her laptop screen in the darkroom. By using images from the news from stories about death and violence, she is attempting to present a visual archive of loss. “My work considers how contemporary photographic imagery circulates and often addresses social and emotional responses to representations of death and mourning. I bring references from different historical periods into a shared visual space in order to initiate a conversation between the past and the present, to imagine a tactile connection or relationship with people who are no longer around, and to question how photographs might elicit empathy,” says Thompson about the work.

The Cecelia Coker Bell Gallery is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday, while classes are in session, and is located in the Gladys C Fort Art Building on the campus of Coker College, Hartsville, S.C. Parking entrance, for the art building, is directly across from 306 E. Home Ave. For more information, contact exhibition director Ashley Gillespie at 843-621-3005 or . For more information on the gallery, go to: ceceliacokerbellgallery.com

Coker College upholds and defends the intellectual and artistic freedom of its faculty and students as they study and create art through which they explore the full spectrum of human experience. The college considers such pursuits central to the spirit of inquiry and thoughtful discussion, which are at the heart of a liberal arts education.