Many current and former students, faculty and staff welcomed professor emeritus Leo Segedin to campus last week for an art exhibition opening reception. Northeastern Illinois University's elder statesman of art, Segedin retired from NEIU in 1987 after teaching art for 32 years. He returned to campus with his artwork, which is on display on the first floor of the Ronald Williams Library through November 30.

Segedin, who has been an exhibiting artist since 1947, is passionate about his work. "Although paintings can be about any personal experience," he wrote in his artist's statement, "I believe that important paintings should be about something important: about life, the human condition, the world we live in, or, in my case, the world we used to live in, or even about art itself."

Recently, Segedin's work has become even more personal as he began to paint himself into the scenes. "Until recently," he wrote, "most of my paintings have been about my childhood, about the spaces I lived in (the streets and rooms, the backyards, the porches and alleys) transformed by my memory. But lately, as age encroaches on my life, I begin to see myself as an old man dancing in these spaces. I am not sure why."

For more information about Segedin and his work, please visit http://www.leopoldsegedin.com.