Friday, April 3, from 6:00 to 9:00pm, the Harrison Center presents “The Great Outdoors,” new work by Emma Overman. The painter, illustrator and muralist who maintains a studio at the Harrison Center, creates work that entertains children and nostalgic adults. About this new exhibit, Overman explains, “I realized years ago that nearly all of life’s greatest moments are those that happen outdoors, where there is a sense of adventure and wonder I rarely find inside. April is the month when all of life seems to awaken, bloom, and peek out of hiding. “The Great Outdoors” is a tribute to that feeling of wonder, new experiences, and memories that can only be made outside your door.”

This month, Speck Gallery features “Inside and Outside the Whale,” work by participants in the current Religion, Spirituality, and the Arts Seminar, sponsored by IUPUI Arts and Humanities. The biblical story of Jonah raises questions such as the as the arbitrariness of unwarranted compassion and the desire to escape human responsibility. Artists imagine the “big fish” as “reassuring womb” and/or “terrifying tomb”, as they wrestle with a recalcitrant prophet who hates change, but nevertheless, brings it about.

Plein air painter Mary Ann Davis brings her interpretation of our city’s waterways to the City Gallery in the solo exhibit, “Indianapolis Waters.”  “I have always been inspired by water and all the colors and reflections. Indianapolis has such a wide variety of water scenes, it was exciting to paint them.” Davis said.

The Gallery Annex features work by two local artists, Graham Marshall and Ana Jeftenic. Marshall is a painter creating work around his love for the natural world. “Sit in the Shade” is a collection of paintings that provide a fantastical lens with which to view the often forgotten spaces all around us. “Passage: new drawings and paintings,” is a body of work by Ana Jeftenic “drawn from travels through North and Central Americas and Europe, Passage traces movements through place and time. Intricate ink drawings and copper paintings are inspired by shifting topography, human-driven erosion, and the changing climate.”

In Hank & Dolly’s Gallery, painter Christos Koutsouras’s exhibit, “Diversity,” begs the question, “Why should we all look the same?” The show incorporates steel cut paintings, drawings and claims curiosity as the source of inspiration. Koutsouras is the latest Harrison Center artist-in-residence, traveling from his hometown of Samos, Greece. In addition to creating this show, he is working with the inaugural class of artists who attended a residency in Samos last October and laying the groundwork to establish the Samos School of Critical Thinking.

The Underground Gallery features Campfire Stories, new work by Leslie Dolin, Travis Owens, and Kent Brinkley.Naptown Stomp brings live music by the Helminger Quintet and swing dancing to the gym.The work hangs through April 24.With support from: the Arts Council of Indianapolis, the Indiana Arts Commission, Christel DeHaan Family Foundation, Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation, the Indianapolis Foundation, and Sun King Brewery.