Visitors could very well be overwhelmed by a feeling of nostalgia when they see artist Bruce McCombs' prints at the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art.

That's the feeling McCombs himself got when he saw photos of the prints on the museum's Web site earlier this week.

"I haven't seen these in probably 20 years," McCombs says.

McCombs, who has been an art professor at Hope College in Holland, Mich., since 1969, hasn't etched for nearly two decades.

"It's almost my other life. It's kind of creepy," McCombs laughs. "It's just one of those crazy things where I finished that last print and I said, 'I never want to do these again.'"

After dealing with the long, maddening process of etching for decades, he began to paint watercolors following a sabbatical in 1982 and later stopped etching altogether. Today, McCombs paints urbanscapes such as buildings, signs, cars and street views with heightened colors.

"I really wanted to paint with pure color because when I was etching, I was always dealing with darkness and black and white," McCombs says.

An exhibit of McCombs' prints from the 1980s titled "Infinite Perspectives" will open today at the Albrecht-Kemper. Although McCombs' work is more than two decades old, the redeemable qualities of his prints extend far beyond nostalgia.

His body of work mixes extraordinary detail and great scale. "Parade" (1985) displays the grand depth of a long Chicago street bustling with giant cartoon character-inspired balloons.

"The intricacy of his work is unbelievable," says museum director Terry Oldham. In "Marathon" (1981), he gives each of the hundreds of runners a face and many other discernible features. This takes tremendous skill given the process of etching, in which an artist uses a needle to draw on a wax-coated metal plate. Most etchings take months to complete.

"I think it's a medium that kind of breaks you down," McCombs says.

McCombs' prints have been featured in museums around the country and in Norway, Taiwan, Colombia and Yugoslavia, among several global destinations. In fact, a few of his friends even saw one in an English office building. McCombs admits it was easy to make multiples of his prints and send them just about anywhere.

"You could print 150 of them and pop those things into tubes," McCombs says. "They were kind of like rabbits. Those babies were everywhere."

Professor Philip Laber's prints also will be displayed as part of another exhibit opening today at the museum. Works from seven faculty members in the art department at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville will encompass the show.

The exhibit will include pieces from faculty members Laura Kukkee (pottery and ceramics), Christopher Graves (paintings), Laber (prints and digital works on canvas), Armin Müsham (paintings), Glenn Williams (sculpture and steel/wood fabrications), Kim Spradling (cast paper art) and Craig Warner (design).

"This exhibition will be something no one has seen here in the past," Oldham says.

Museum officials are especially excited about the work of Glenn Williams, because sculpture is rarely featured at the Albrecht-Kemper. And while each faculty member specializes in various forms of art, each also provides very different artistic perspectives and thought.

For example, Laber's work supports various elements of the human condition. He draws from personal experiences, current political topics and historical references.

"The prints tend to be a little bit more political and social observations of our day, and yet they're metaphors from a position from antiquity," Laber says.

Every member has been featured in exhibitions all over the world, but this is the first time the Northwest faculty will hold a group show at the Albrecht-Kemper. While it's a chance for the museum to display professional art from the region, it's also an opportunity for the Northwest faculty to reach a new audience and host a group event outside of Maryville.

"Our communities have everything to gain from each other," Laber says.

All seven Northwest faculty members will be on hand at the exhibit's opening reception from 4 to 7 p.m. today at the museum. The event is open to the public. For more information, call 233-7003 or visit www.albrecht-kemper.org.

Shea Conner | Stjoelive staff