AMES, IA.- The trees take center focus in the new art exhibition set to open at the Christian Petersen Art Museum, Morrill Hall, Iowa State University, on Tuesday, January 21, 2025.

Iowa roots take flight

The exhibitions feature artwork by Jeanine Coupe Ryding (American, b. 1948), an artist whose works can be found throughout Iowa State University Museums' and the Memorial Union's permanent collections. She is known for her innovative printmaking, often using woodcut prints to help incorporate storytelling, social commentary and personal introspection into her work.

Coupe Ryding graduated from the University of Iowa in 1971 with a Bachelor of Arts in Printmaking. In the years that followed, she took courses in French from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and later received her Meisterschuler (MFA) in Sculpture and Printmaking from the Universitat der Kunste in Berlin, Germany.

Additionally, she has had residencies in Belgium and Michigan.

Two galleries of the Christian Petersen Art Museum will feature works of art by Coupe Ryding. In the Woods, located in the Campbell Gallery, 1017 Morrill Hall, includes works that explore the world's relationships with trees and highlights their role as essential resources and symbols of cultural and spiritual value.

The Neva M. Petersen Gallery, ground floor Morrill Hall, will feature Rooted Impressions, the early works of Jeanine Coupe Ryding. This exhibition highlights the long-standing narrative tradition of printmaking.

"We feel extremely fortunate to be able to showcase Jeanine's work in two of our galleries this semester and through the summer," said Alison Ranniger Van Zante, curator of the Christian Petersen Art Museum. "In her decades-long career, Coup Ryding's style has continued to evolve deeper into abstraction, referencing underlying narratives and storytelling that continues in her body of work presented within these two exhibitions."