College professor illustrates art apocalypse

Grand Rapids Community College (GRCC) will showcase a new exhibit by an assistant professor.

Matthew Schenk, who teaches 2D design, color, digital foundations and digital painting at GRCC, will have his exhibit “Tradigital,” on display from 10:30 a.m.-7 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays in April at the Paul Collins Art Gallery on the fourth floor of Raleigh J. Finkelstein Hall, at 143 Bostwick Ave. NE.

“Tradigital” illustrates proclamations of the apocalypse. Schenk said the exhibit looks at various “art is dead” declarations — which he said first started in 1839 — and media pronouncements that this is the end of days and the world is in ruins.

“These particular pieces are a selection of my work over the (past) 14 years,” he said. “They start out as observation of the human form and beauty and devolve into confronting the viewer with our insecurities with views of the apocalypse bogeyman and its visual symbols — guns, technology, gas masks and grit.”

Schenk previously taught illustration and medical illustration at Ferris State University’s Kendall College of Art and Design for 11 years.

From 1997 to 2005, he was a coordinator and production supervisor at Columbia Tristar Children’s Entertainment, now Sony Television Animation, where he worked on “Jackie Chan Adventures,” “Men in Black: The Animated Series” and “Jumanji.”