The North Florida Community College Art Department invites the public to its September exhibit RITUALS featuring work by photographer Mark Alan Francis. The exhibit is on display Sept. 6-29 at the Hardee Center for the Arts (NFCC campus, Bldg. 11). To celebrate the exhibit and guest artist, NFCC is hosting an Artist Talk and reception with Mark Alan Francis on Thursday, Sept. 15 at the Hardee Center beginning at 11:30 a.m. Refreshments will be served. All are invited to attend to meet the artist and learn more about his work.

MARK ALAN FRANCIS is Professor of Photography and Photography Program Coordinator at the Anna Lamar Switzer Center for Visual Arts on the Pensacola State Collage campus. Francis’ work is exhibited nationally, in solo shows and numerous juried exhibitions for the past 21 years. His work primarily portrays Southern issues, from landscapes and environmental portraits to his recent focus on eclectic festivals.

RITUALS, on display at the NFCC Hardee Center for the Arts from Sept. 6 until Sept. 29, explores not only the nations communal gatherings, but also conveys the social harmony generated by the community involvement participating and performing in these events.

“My goal is to preserve and portray these occasions through photography and document them to lend some social, historic and artistic insight to these characteristic gatherings,” said Francis.

Of his work, Deborah R. Bassett, PhD, of the University of West Florida, had this to say – “He does not disappear into a crowd, and yet it is perhaps this inability to blend in, as well as his preference for an ‘in-your-face’ wide-angle lens over a more covert telephoto lens, that endears a crowd to him as a photographer. His subjects are fully aware of his presence and interact with him, and his camera, boldly and intentionally. The relationship between him and his subjects, which translates into a relationship between the viewer and the subjects, is one of trust and respect."

The Hardee Center for the Arts is open to the public Monday-Thursday from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Admission is free.