A selection of paintings and drawings by Montana State University Billings art professor Neil Jussila will be presented in the Northcutt Steele Gallery from January 11 to February 10.

Jussila, often referred to as one of the top expressionist artists in the region, will also have a reception on Thursday, January 19, from 2:30-4:30 p.m. Refreshments will be served.

All events are free and open the public.

“Trout Fishing in Montana —Meditations on the Enchantment of Color and the Infinite Loveliness of Being” is presented as a retirement exhibition by the artist/educator who began teaching in 1969, at what was then Eastern Montana College.

Jussila’s career has transitioned from the portable typewriter to the emergence of information technology and new media, which he believes is significantly changing the meaning of art in ways not seen since the Renaissance.

The Butte native said his art is about the idea of painting, as a meditative form, linked to the idea of poetry as in the poems of Wallace Stevens and T. S. Eliot.

The artist’s expressions are open-ended, and always changing. He, like Picasso, doesn’t believe in style, which he views as a straightjacket. For Jussila, art is about insight and innovation, sensing and feeling.

“That’s what makes it work,” Jussila said. “And no one will ever figure it out because there are no rules.”

The Northcutt Steele Gallery is located on the first floor of the Liberal Arts Building on the four-year campus of MSU Billings. Hourly fee parking is available in the parking lot, directly south of McMullen Hall near the flagpole entrance to the campus off of Poly Drive.

For more information on the exhibit, contact Jerome Mazyck, Northcutt Steele Gallery director, at 657-2903.