HOUGHTON — The Ortlip Gallery at Houghton University will be hosting a show of work by longtime art professor John Rhett this fall.

“Self-Evaluation: Selected Work from 50 Years in Art by Houghton Professor of Art John Rhett,” will be open from Friday through Dec. 15. The public is invited to an opening reception from 6-7:30 p.m. Friday in the Center for the Arts atrium. Rhett will give remarks about the exhibit in the Center for the Arts Recital Hall at 6:30 p.m.

With a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Fine Arts (1979 and 1995, respectively) from the Virginia Commonwealth University, Rhett began teaching at Houghton in 1995. As Houghton’s primary Graphic Design instructor, he also teaches drawing, introduction to the visual arts, modern & contemporary art history, and Asian art history survey, among other courses.

“Rhett is a dear friend, a valued colleague, and a person important in the building of an excellent art program. Houghton has been lucky to enjoy his many gifts and expertise,” said fellow art professor Ted Murphy.

Rhett’s exhibit is particularly fascinating because, as its title alludes to, it is a deeply personal and reflective show spanning decades of work. Featuring landscape oil paintings, it also includes charcoal sketches, stark black-and-white ink studies, watercolors, and never-before-seen self-portraits. Rhett demonstrates through these works that life as an artist is a journey of becoming, a constant learning process. While viewers will be impressed by the sheer scale and beauty of Rhett’s works, he emphasizes that some pieces in the exhibit are not necessarily what he considers his best works but rather important for the lessons he learned making them. For example, one of these—a hallway scene from his childhood home in Virginia—taught Rhett the difficulty of realizing the importance of light and shadow.

Several other themes emerge from Rhett’s exhibit: his fascination with forsythia, his aptitude for plein air (outside) painting, his interest in capturing the night sky, and his ability to see beauty in the overlooked scenes of everyday life. Rhett’s vision was influenced by Fairfield Porter, whose career was born in the modernist movement of the 20th century yet who remained a representational painter (albeit tinged with abstract techniques). Murphy said that Rhett’s “eye for subject matter” allows him to find “great beauty in the edges and margins—parking lots, street lights, roadway intersections…he finds transcendent the quotidian.”

Ortlip Gallery director, Linda Knapp, adds that the exhibit is impactful not only because of Rhett’s artistic adroitness but also because he has lived in our corner of western New York for nearly 30 years now.

“There is a certain mutualism between an artist and his place.” Knapp said. “In a sense, John’s presence and his craft defines ours. His perspective and representations of our landscapes provides meaning for us as we move about our lives in this place too.”