Artist Paints World Travels In His Work

Some travelers keep journals as they shift through foreign lands, but artist Keith Achepohl recorded his impressions with paint.

Achepohl, a University of Iowa art professor, was fluent in printmaking when he first pushed off 20 years ago to tour Egypt, Italy, Greece and Turkey. He returned conversant in watercolor, with a heavy Mediterranean accent.

Through Dec. 13, the Jundt Art Museum at Gonzaga University hosts “Keith Achepohl: Journeys - Selections from 20 Years of Watercolors,” a traveling exhibition of 162 vivid paintings with an angle on ancient architecture. The Jundt is the third of six stops in the show’s itinerary.

More measured than spontaneous, Achepohl’s perspectives slice and zigzag through a travelogue of cantilevers, porticoes and mosaic patterns. He mottles and dabs the paint to suggest the textures of terra cotta and marble, and sharpens the edges of lines with pencil.

The museum is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday from noon to 4 p.m.; it’s closed Nov. 27-30. Admission is free.

Concurrent with the Achepohl exhibit is a display in the Jundt’s Arcade Gallery, “A Jeweler’s Eye: Sculptures by Jody Sahlin.”

For information, call 328-4220, ext. 3011.