David M. Spear, photographer of the captivating exhibition entitled "The Neugents, Close to Home," will discuss his work at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 28, in UNCA’s University Gallery. The event is free and open to the public.

Spear’s talk is in coordination with his exhibition which is on view in UNCA’s University Gallery through March 13. The exhibition documents the daily life of an extended family of Rockingham County, North Carolina tobacco farmers in powerful and often disturbing images. Depictions range from matriarch Mamie Neugent milking the family cow, washing grandchildren and scrubbing possums for stew meat to scenes of the family’s work in the tobacco fields to one of Mamie’s grandsons showing off stitches from a knife fight, a daughter-in-law’s bruises from an assault, and a family member writhing in an alcohol delirium. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Spear, a Madison, N.C. native, has works in permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Art in Houston and the Ackland Museum in Chapel Hill. He received a North Carolina Artist Grant in 1991, and was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 1992.

For more information, call the UNCA Art Department at 828/251-6559.