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MARSHALLTOWN – The first exhibition of the new academic year features the recent artwork of Tim Castle, Marshalltown Community College’sProfessor of Art. The exhibition is titled “Pictures from Virgina Woolf (Maybe)” and opens to the public in MCC’s Ray Frederick Gallery, room 414, on Tuesday, September 3.

Castle, who is in his 26th year of teaching at MCC, has been contemplating this exhibition for a number of years. “Besides my paintings on canvas, I have been working on another series of works that are on paper and are a mixture of collage, paint, inks, and other mediums. I started them before the pandemic began and they are ongoing,” says Castle. Viewers will immediately notice that the works are not framed, which is intentional, “I wanted the paper to lift off the wall and breathe,” says Castle. “There is something beautiful about the fragility of paper and with them being robustly worked and wetted they take on the characteristics of skin and the body.”

“I love collage and cobbling all kinds of materials together,” explains Castle, “cutting, assembling, and then reworking the fragments is very satisfying, you can draw and paint with just scissors or a blade and still create intriguing images.” The tactile quality of this kind of work is something that Castle greatly enjoys, “it’s very rewarding and in a similar way I’ve always had a deep admiration for people who work with their hands, carpenters, hairstylists, plumbers, seamstresses – you name them – they are aware of the intelligence that is in the hands and how they use that hand intelligence is a marvel to watch.”

The title of the exhibit is unusual, and Castle explains where it came from: “At about the time of starting these works I had just read Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse” which had me spellbound. It’s been on my reading list for 40 years starting when I was back in England and a close friend said she was reading this novel and just loved it. Well, better late than never! I became a fan of Woolf’s and read several more novels and I was amazed at how she used language to give insight and expression to being human. So that was the beginning and upon starting this series of artworks I kept thinking – if Virginia Woolf was alive today and she made pictures what would they be pictures of? It’s one of those inspirational things that probably seems irrational but for me served as a poetic idea to create a series of works.” All of the works in the exhibition are modest in size, some very small, “I want the works to draw you close,” says Castle, “Woolf was a writer, small pieces of paper and the compositions on them, and the resulting books, were her artform and I think that idea carried over into making these images small in scale – there’s an intimacy there that seemed natural, like reading a letter or a book.”

Ultimately, what are the pictures about? “They are open ended,” says Castle. “Yes, the novel by Woolf was an inspiration and a starting point but they have a life of their own and they will speak differently from one person to the next. They are mysterious, poetic, qualities I cherish more and more in a world that is becoming increasingly cookie-cutter. I hope visitors will spend a little time with them – it’s the experience of being in each other’s presence that really matters.”

The Castle exhibition closes at noon on Friday, September 27. The gallery is open weekdays, 9 am – 5 pm. For further information about the Ray Frederick Gallery, please contact Tim Castle at Tim.Castle@iavalley.edu.