Walking into the Marshall Area Fine Arts Council (MAFAC) building for the first time brings about a rush of senses. Initially, I heard the high-pitched pingthat came with the bell’s indication of the door being opened. Following the bell, I heard the quiet conversations being held between viewers over the artwork on display.

I read a sign that described the show as a “meditation on memory, loss, exploration, fear, and gratitude through the immersion of photograph, color-infused layers, and geometry.” However, this description didn’t prepare me for what was around the corner.

The sensations turned from auditory to visual. Lining the walls were countless pieces of Chris Green’s artwork. Accompanying each piece of original artwork was more original art, this time in the form of stories and poems.

Green, an SMSU graduate, showcased his artwork publicly for the first time on Thursday, Sept. 19, in a show titled Erasure Redactions. “The title was inspired by our thoughts and feelings that we don’t convey, but still sometimes leak out anyways to those who pay attention,” Green said.

Although this was his first public show, he has done private shows for friends and family in the past. If Green had to describe his artwork, he said he would call it “digital photographic immersion printed on paper.” However, he prefaced this comment by saying that he didn’t “wish to limit people’s interaction with the art or take away from their experience.”

Green has been gathering photographs to use in his art since 2009, but he only picked up this new style within the past three or four years. Sometimes he will create the art first and write the accompanying story later, Other times, though, he finds himself writing and visualizing the artwork that needs to be created. The two different art mediums, which he creates using several programs on an old Windows XP computer, are inspired by each other.

Although he has always enjoyed art, Green didn’t graduate from SMSU with a degree in the field. In fact, the only art class that he took in college was Art History 101, making him entirely self-taught.

He instead graduated with a degree in Environmental Science. “I was always interested in art – shapes and colors and all that – but I knew that I wanted to be a scientist,” Green said. He credited his time spent in nature for influencing his love for art, and he said that he uses “that connection to nature as the water to blossom the flower of creativity. It feels very much a part of [him].”