Simone's photography - a series of 10 images of a male bodybuilder - and Carmichael's prints and drawings are on display in the gallery at the Lebanon Campus of HACC through Oct. 29. The exhibit, part of a season-long series, is co-sponsored by the Lebanon Valley Council on the Arts.
Simone is a Lebanon native who has been taking photographs since his high school days. His studio, Simone Associates, produces images for commercial clients including many of the largest companies and publications in the country. He is also a partner in Digital Imaging Solutions Corporation and an adjunct instructor of Art at Lebanon Valley College.
Simone has always taken pictures for his own artistic enjoyment and over the past twenty-something years, has produced figure, landscape and still life studies which exploit the aesthetics of black and white film, Polaroid, color print and digital printers. The current series is an exploration of the male figure primarily in abstract terms.
Carmichael began his formal art education in 1974, in the Ulster Polytechnic's Foundation Art course, progressing the following year to the Ulster College of Art and Design in Belfast. He graduated in 1978 with a bachelor's degree with honors in Fine Art.
After leaving art school he became a technician in the print workshop of the Arts Council for Northern Ireland and worked there for a year prior to entering an Art Teachers Diploma Course. Following the completion of his studies, he taught for a while in the local high school system but returned to making a living as an artist in the spring of 1981. Later that year he was awarded a Rome Scholarship in printmaking by Northern Ireland's Arts Council.
In Rome he worked on a series of color linoleum print illustrations to the poetry of Padraig Fiacc, a major Irish poet. While in Italy he traveled extensively, and was influenced by medieval religious painting and sculpture. On his return to Belfast he resumed work as an artist and in 1983-84 staged a series of one-man shows throughout Ireland.
Marriage brought him to the United States in 1984 and he lived in Philadelphia and Stony Brook, NY, before coming to Central Pennsylvania, where his wife, a family physician, now practices.
Other upcoming art exhibits at the Lebanon Campus of HACC include relief prints by Jandi Goshert, Nov. 1-19, with a reception Nov. 11, 7-9 p.m.; and an exhibit featuring work by members of the Lebanon Valley Council on the Arts, Nov. 29-Dec. 17, with a reception Dec. 9, 7-9 p.m.
The Lebanon Campus of HACC is located at 735 Cumberland Street in Lebanon.