An NIU art professor will be exhibiting his work this holiday season in a New York gallery.

Professor Walter Ball, a drawing and painting instructor in NIU’s school of art, will exhibit “The Mirage Series” in the Noho Gallery, located in Manhattan, from December 22 until January 10.

The pieces in the exhibit range from the abstract to the figurative and are unusual in their combinations of electric colors and deep, subtle tones, said a gallery spokesman. The paintings in the exhibit are executed in oil and the accompanying drawings in lacquer.

Two pieces in the exhibit received awards from art institutions. “Zephyr” was chosen for a Museum Guild Purchase Award at the 30th Mid-States Art Exhibition, and the oil painting “Mirage” was the winner of the Juror’s Prize in the 9th Washington and Jefferson National Painting Show.

Ball, who received his PhD in painting from Ohio State University, has an ongoing interest in the physiology of the eye and brain, optics, Gestalt psychology and aspects of perception related to painting, the gallery spokesman said. These themes are explored both directly and indirectly in the majority of his work, the spokesman added.

The work of Walter Ball is included in public and private collections worldwide, and he has exhibited in more than 200 galleries and museums around the nation. Ball is listed in “Who’s Who In American Art,” “American Artists” and “An Illustrated Survey of Leading Contemporary Americans.”