Two new art exhibits – one a light show with truly cosmic origins – go on display June 2 at Bellevue College’s Gallery Space. Both are open to the public free of charge through Sept. 24.

A reception for the artists will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. June 2 in the gallery, which is designated room 271 of the college’s D Building.

On exhibit in the front of the gallery will be some of the best student work from this academic year, as selected by Art Department faculty. This exhibit features ceramics, drawings, paintings and photographs, as well as prints by students in the college’s new printmaking course.

The second exhibit, essentially a light show in the darkened rear of the gallery, illustrates the beauty being created as transparent acrylic panels on the roof detect collisions of cosmic-ray particles with similar particles in the air, spinning off clusters of energized, additional “daughter” particles.

The panels, called “scintillators,” spark and glow inside when penetrated by these subatomic particles.

Created by an interdisciplinary team of nine faculty members and students from the college’s art and physics departments, the exhibit surrounds a live readout of data from actual particle collisions occurring just a matter of feet above the exhibit, with lights and sculpture that simulate the collection-panel scintillations.

The interdisciplinary project was designed to bring together physics and art students – groups which ordinarily would not work together – to learn from each other as they created this artistic installation.

Entitled WALTArt, the project was inspired by the University of Washington’s WALTA (Washington Large Area Time Coincidence Array) educational physics project.

Bellevue College’s Gallery Space will be open to the public this summer, when school is in session, on Mondays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Tuesdays, 2–5 p.m.; Wednesdays 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Thursdays, noon to 5 p.m. It will be closed Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Further information about the gallery is available online.

The college’s main campus is located at 3000 Landerholm Circle S.E., Bellevue, at the intersection of S.E. 28th St. and 148th Ave. S.E.