On Nov. 4, a new display will be coming to the Cummings Art Gallery on campus.

The National Collage Society’s 35th annual juried art exhibit will feature 55 works that showcase the diversity of the burgeoning medium.

There is also a reception for the exhibit planned for 5 to 7 p.m. on Nov. 7, the same week that the exhibit opens.

Mercyhurst Professor of Art, Daniel Burke, is the awards judge and will announce almost a dozen awards of cash and art materials during the evening.

The reception will also have refreshments and feature a performance on Celtic harp by Ellen Putnam Paquette.

Attending the reception is encouraged, as several of the artists featured in the exhibit are expected to make appearances.

The National Collage Society is a foundation whose goal is to “foster the appreciation and interest in the recognized medium of collage,” according to the society’s website.

Collage is a relatively new art form, only having been identified as its own medium in the 20th century.

The National Collage Society seeks to inform and educate the public on this medium through workshops, publications and displays, like the one that is coming to the Mercyhurst campus next week.

Entries for this exhibition were open to all artists.

The exhibition accepted entries of 2 or 3-dimensional, mixed-media glued collages.

Out of 373 entries from 37 states and 2 countries, only 55 works were selected to make it into the final exhibit.

The chosen works make up a colorful body of art, representing the diversity of the medium.

The materials used in the collages vary greatly, and the featured pieces include an assemblage of found objects: a reconfiguration of the American flag, a imagistic collection of birds and body parts and a piece made of items scavenged from the shores of the Great Lakes.

Artists to be featured in the exhibit include Mercyhurst alumni Larry Walczak ’74 and Will Usprung ’76.

Students, faculty and community members will have plenty of time to experience the interesting exhibit before the end of the fall semester.

The exhibit will be on display from Nov. 4 through Dec. 7 in the Cummings Art Gallery, which is located inside of the Mary D’Angelo Performing Arts Center.

The Cummings Art Gallery is open on weekdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Saturday from noon to 3 p.m.

It is closed on Sundays.

The gallery will also be closed Nov. 27 through Dec. 1, for Mercyhurst’s Thanksgiving break.

Entry to the gallery is free for the public.

Details about the exhibit, including information on which pieces were awarded prizes at the reception, will also be available on the National Collage Society’s website.

The web address for this is nationalcollage.com.