Elizabeth Alley at Material

For immediate release:

April 28, 2008

Contact: Hamlett Dobbins

901.219.1943

hamlettdobbins@hotmail.com.

Material is pleased to present its fifth exhibition of 2008: Elizabeth Alley: Class of ’88. The exhibition will open with a reception for the artist on Friday, May 2 from 6-8 pm.

The exhibition will run from May 2 through May 31st.

Elizabeth Alley has shown her work regularly in the region since receiving her BFA from the University of Memphis in 1998. She has shown at a number of the area’s art spaces including Delta Axis at Marshall Arts, Lantana Projects, Memphis College of Art’s On the Street here in Memphis as well as the Renaissance Center in Dickson, Tennessee, the Nashville Airport, and the Southside Gallery in Oxford, Mississippi. She is represented locally by Perry Nicole Fine Art Gallery. She lives and works here in Memphis.

About the show the artist writes:

“In 1988 my big brother and all of his friends graduated from high school. I was simultaneously in awe of their milestone and bummed that all of the cool people were gone, leaving the school feeling leaderless.

“This series of acrylic paintings on paper takes a look back at the Class of ’88, though, which school isn’t important. The images show a true slice of life of the American teenager in 1988. It is a time that could never be duplicated. The images look like our memories – faded, and with a few details missing.”

Additional information and images of the artist’s work can be found at her website: http://www.elizabethalley.com/.

Material is located at 2553 Broad Avenue. Parking is available on both the north and south sides of Broad Avenue.

Jpg information: “Elizabeth_alley_pr.jpg” is Elizabeth Alley’s Junior Miss, 22x30", acrylic on paper, 2008.

Ryan Rowlett at Odessa

For Immediate Release:

On Friday, May 25, Odessa is proud to present "Flew the Coop," a multimedia performance/installation by artist Ryan Rowlett.

The installation involves a series of projected animations that will be traced onto the walls of the building to create a sprawling wallpaper-like effect.

The performance begins at 7pm, and will continue throughout the evening, set to live musical performances by Cloudland Canyon, Girls of the Gravitron, and Colin Wilson. Admission to all is $3.Odessa is located at 2613 Broad Ave.

For further information, please contact:Richard Gamble glyph7784@earthlink.net (901)626-3617.

Drawing Symposium on Saturday, April 19th

Good morning all, This is an invitation to a drawing symposium being hosted by one of our students, Lauren Kennedy. Lauren is one of Rhodes College's CODA scholars and has been active in the community for the past several years, she organized the shows with Vitus Shell and Alex Carter last year on Broad, she organized the Downtown Storefront project with Dwayne Butcher, Mel Spillman, and many others. Her latest project is this Drawing Symposium where she's invited some Memphis artists for whom drawing is their primary form of art making. The invited artists each approach drawing with a particular angle, Terri Jones with her interest in using different materials to activate an interior space, David Evans with his connection to body art, and Joel Hilgenberg and his approach to narrative story telling. Each artist will talk briefly about their work and hopefully a conversation will happen between the artists and the guests. It should be a great opportunity to sit and talk about drawing. I hope you can make it on what I'm sure will be a beautiful Saturday afternoon.
-Hamlett Dobbins

You have been cordially invited to a Drawing Symposium to take place April 19th, 2008 at one o’clock in the Orgill Room in Clough at Rhodes College (the reception room by the gallery). The afternoon will include discussions with artists Terri Jones, David Evans and Joel Hilgenberg. The symposium will be hosted by Lauren Kennedy, with the assistance of the Center for Outreach in the Development of the Arts.

This event has been organized in order to create a dialogue between various members of the artistic community about the different interpretations and methods of drawing, with the hope of forging potential collaborations and continuous conversation. The afternoon will be an informal get-together with refreshments, good people, and enjoyable arts talk. Be there or be square. but don't be square.

Kiersten N Williams: Playing House

Contact: Mary Pat Pead
(813) 784-0350 or peamp@rhodes.edu

For Immediate Release:

Mary Pat Pead and Gallery #2571 Broad are delighted to announce the solo exhibition: Kiersten N. Williams: Playing House.

Playing House will take place for one night only on Friday, April 18, 2008 from 6-9 p.m. The reception will be held in the gallery during the exhibit.

The show is located at 2571 Broad Avenue.

Playing House will feature new paintings that continue Williams’ themes of self-realization while incorporating fresh inspirations discovered during her recent residency in the Virgin Islands. Her collages radiate with vibrant, daring colors and generate an energetic presence in whatever environment they inhabit. Phrases and numbers rendered in a graffiti-manner are juxtaposed with abstract, symbolic and figurative imagery to evoke feelings related to Williams’ childhood experience. In her statement for the exhibition the artist writes “Home is the beginning, yet also the rest of our lives. Playing House is a personal testimony, an expression of inner growth and a celebration of fortitude. The pieces reflect the struggles and pleasures of my childhood: isolation, poverty, remorse, joy, fear, love. These prevailing emotions enable others to connect with the work and reminisce about their own upbringings.”

Kiersten N. Williams was born in Memphis in 1981. She attended Overton High School where she actively pursued art in its advanced program. She received a Business Management degree from University of Memphis in 2004. After a brief hiatus from practicing art while earning the business degree, Williams reclaimed her passion for creating and has been dedicated to art-making ever since. For the month of March (2008), she performed a residency in St. Croix (Virgin Islands) alongside fellow artist Anthony D. Lee. Her residency included a solo show titled Beautiful Decay at the Caribbean Museum of the Arts. She is represented by the Hearne Fine Art Gallery in Little Rock, AR, where her work is currently displayed in the group show Daughters of Diaspora. She has been included in group exhibitions at Delta Axis at Marshall Arts, Memphis College of Art’s On the Street Gallery, and the Tunica Museum (Tunica, MS). She has recently been featured by the Memphis-based online magazine Culture Grits. Williams works and resides in her birthplace of Memphis.

This exhibition is sponsored by the Center for Outreach in the Development in the Arts at Rhodes College.

If you should have any questions please contact Mary Pat Pead at 813-784-0350 or peamp@rhodes.edu

JPG information: “Kiers_image” is a detail of the artist’s spray painted and acrylic mural in her studio. The image is courtesy of Kiersten N. Williams, Memphis, TN.

Tad Lauritzen Wright: Rebuttal

Contact: Katherine Dunbar-Smith
(601)-672-8017

For Immediate Release:

Katherine Dunbar-Smith with Rhodes College Gallery Management class is excited to announce the student organized exhibition: Tad Lauritzen Wright: Rebuttal.

Rebuttal will show on Friday, April 18th, 2008 from 6-9 p.m. at Pauper’s Bizarre on Bingham St. between Sam Cooper and Broad.

Tad Lauritzen Wright is a local Memphis artist who recently was selected to organize the “Blue Parkway Project” in celebration of the UrbanArts Commission’s 10th year anniversary. The public art installation consisted of wrapping hundreds of trees on all three parkways with blue banners. The “Blue Parkway” was meant to connect all three Parkways and the Mississippi River marking the old city limits of Memphis. The blue banners featured line drawings of connected houses and people holding hands representing the community along the Parkways. The project stirred a lot of discussion among the Memphis public ranging from confusion to anger to support for the project. On Friday, April 18th at Pauper’s Bizarre, Lauritzen Wright offers “Rebuttal” to the Memphis public.

Tad Lauritzen Wright was born in San Angelo, Texas in 1972. He received his BFA from Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1994 and went on to receive his MFA from Memphis College of Art in 2002. He has had recent solo shows at Material Gallery in Memphis, Koelsch Gallery in Houston, Anderson O’Brien Fine Art in Omaha, Julie Baker Gallery Nevada City CA, and at David Lusk Gallery in Memphis. His work has also been included in numerous group shows throughout the US. He was selected to be in the New Orleans Triennial in 2005 , has had residencies at Tamarind Institute and the Vermont Studio Center, and was selected for exhibition in the publication New American Paintings in 2002, 2004, and 2007. His work was awarded Best of Show in Arts in the Park, Memphis in 2004. Lauritzen Wright lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee.

If you have any questions please contact Katherine Dunbar-Smith (601) 672-8017, or email dunke@rhodes.edu.

This exhibition is sponsored by the Center for Outreach in the Development in the Arts at Rhodes College.

Jpg information: “Blue_Parkway_1.jpg” is Blue Parkway Project photograph, Image courtesy the artist.

Louis Giberson: A Solo Exhibition

Contact : Bonnie Bollinger
bolba@rhodes.edu and (817) 291.5487

In conjunction with the Gallery Management class at Rhodes College, student and curator Bonnie Bollinger is excited to announce Louis Giberson: A Solo Exhibition.

This show is a one-night only show with a reception from 6-9pm on Friday, April 18, 2008. The show will take place at 477 South Front Street.

This solo exhibition of Louis Giberson’s paintings will feature six of his large scale paintings. The paintings that Giberson has been working on while studying at MCA are vibrant colorful images that force the viewer to really look at what is happening within the painting. Large brush strokes draw the audience to the paintings, while at the same time giving each of them their own life. Each painting has its own particular texture and movement to it. The exhibition will feature these large scale paintings.

Louis Giberson is a graduate student at Memphis College of Art. At present, he is a teacher’s assistant to the Director of Exhibitions and Lectures and is a Resident Assistant at MCA. His work has been exhibited in many exhibitions both here in Memphis and around Illinois. Most recently, his work was featured in the Graduate Exhibition at MCA in January 2008. Over the past five years, Louis has received many awards that include the Dean’s Scholarship at Memphis College of Art, a Humanities Fellowship from the Chicago Humanities Festival in 2006. Most recently in February of 2008, he was awarded the Alex Camps Traveling Fellowship.

This exhibition is sponsored by the Center for Outreach in the Development in the Arts at Rhodes College.

If you should have any questions, please contact Bonnie Bollinger at bolba@rhodes.edu or (817) 291.5487.

Rhodes College's 2008 Senior Thesis Exhibition

For Immediate Release:
Clough-Hanson Gallery at Rhodes College is very excited to announce its final show of the season: SIX FIGURES: The 2008 Senior Thesis Exhibition.

SIX FIGURES: The 2008 Senior Thesis Exhibition will open with a reception on Friday, April 18th, from 6-8 pm.

The exhibition will run from April 18th through April 24th.

The exhibition will feature work by six graduating studio majors: Kara Clarke, Hayley Hill, Elizabeth Mann, Donna Smith, Rachel Thompson, and Danielle Zuckerman.

Gallery hours for Clough-Hanson are Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11:00-5:00 p.m. The gallery is closed Sundays and Mondays. Admission to the gallery is always free to the public.
If you should have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact Hamlett Dobbins at Clough-Hanson Gallery (901) 843-3442, or via email at dobbinsh@rhodes.edu.

This exhibition and its brochure are generously supported by the Center for Outreach and Development in the Arts at Rhodes College.

Jpg information:
“smith_clot.jpg” is Donna Smith’s Clot, Digital print, 24x30”, 2008.

U of M MFA Show

The University of Memphis Thesis Show featuring Melissa Rackham and Tim Kinard opening April 19, 2008 and closing May 10th. Reception April 18th 5:00-7:30 in the Art Museum of The University of Memphis, More info @ www.AMUM.org

Melissa Rackham is a photography graduate student, originally from Washington State; she has a varied background in photography, with degrees in Photojournalism, Studio Art, and Photography. The culmination of her graduate work is a collection of images dealing with place and childhood through unusual compositions, unexpected juxtapositions, and subtle innuendoes. Laden with symbolism, the images hold themes of loss, fear, regret, and the passing of time.

Tim Kinard, originally from Texas, is a graduate student in the Sculpture Program. His MFA thesis work is a series of figurative sculptures that utilize a circus theme as an umbrella in which to investigate the physicality of perceived character images. His figures, which vary in size from two feet to nine feet tall, are set in idealistic situations of tension where they illustrate the vulnerability of heroes and peers.

Placed Place

For Immediate Release:
April 9, 2008
Contact: Ben Utigard
(630)240-4490 or via email benutigard@yahoo.com.

In conjunction with the Gallery Management class at Rhodes College, MCA M.F.A. candidate and curator Ben Utigard is excited to announce Placed Place.

The exhibition will run for one night only at 2547 Broad Avenue on Friday, April 11th from 6-8:30 pm.

Placed Place is a visual quartet featuring four Memphis artists: Brooke Foy, Pinkney Herbert, Alex Jankowski, and Claudia Quintero. The show is about personally constructed environments. Artists are constantly concerned with redefining and individually interpreting their environments. Claude Monet meticulously built and groomed his Giverny gardens to inspire his most fruitful impressionist paintings. Odilon Redon and Louise Bourgoise, at different times, both recollected and projected their nightmares as spiders dancing on a page of paper. The artists in Placed Place build their own ecosystems: they are each concerned with perceiving and reinterpreting their own physical and mental environments.

Brooke Foy is originally from Monroe, Louisiana. She is pursuing her MFA degree in sculpture from the University of Memphis. Ms. Foy has showcased her work recently at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, the Museum of the University of Memphis, and The Alexandria Museum of Modern Art. Her work often excites the visceral disorientation of unobtainable or dislocated places. For example, she uses objects such as a porcelain sinks set too high or a woodchip houses placed too low.

Pinkney Herbert is a Memphis-based artist. His work has been extensively exhibited and collected internationally, nationally, and regionally. Mr. Herbert received his BA from Rhodes College and his MFA from the University of Memphis. He is the director of Marshall Arts gallery and artists’ studio, and is also a full-time painter. An abstract painter, he is deeply invested in creative cycles of construction and destruction. Herbert utilizes metaphors of fire and water to mark the procession of his work. Arborists who use controlled burning in wilderness areas often apply a method similar to Mr. Herbert’s.

Alex Jankowski has been living in Memphis since 1972. A graduate of the Memphis College of Art, Mr. Jankowski has had solo exhibitions at Rhodes College and the Parthenon in Nashville. He has designed stage sets for the Orpheum theatre in Memphis. Mr. Jankowski’s shaped-canvas oil painting Rite of Spring borrows the name of the Igor Stravinsky composition. A springtime sketch Jankowski drew near Cleveland, Mississippi, inspired the work. The sculptural painting awakens the cold slumber of winter into “the blossoming of spring.”

Claudia Quintero is a multimedia artist originally from Southern Texas. She is finalizing her MFA degree at the Memphis College of Art. Ms. Quintero has had recent exhibitions at the On the Street Gallery, Caseworks at the Museum of the University of Memphis, and the Memphis Theological Seminary. Her work can be about transitory space; a frame between point A and point B. This still-frame approach to her work creates a sense of longing for the constant.

If you should have any questions please contact Ben Utigard at 630-240-4490 or at benutigard@yahoo.com.

Jpg information: “Herbert_pr.jpg” is Pinkney Herbert’s Seafire, Oil on canvas, 62x95”, 2005.

Claudia Quintero

For Immediate Release:

In conjunction with the Gallery Management class at Rhodes College, student and curator Donna Smith is excited to announce Claudia Quintero: Inhabit.

Inhabit is a one-night only show with a reception from 6-8pm on Friday, April 11, 2008. The show will take place at 500 Second Street.

(As you head south on Second Street, stay left when approaching the Happy Mexican restaurant. The space will soon be to your left.)

Inhabit features a number of mixed media photographs from the thesis work of Memphis College of Art graduate student Claudia Quintero. Her work has most recently been shown at MCA’s On the Street gallery as part of Unconcealed--Graduate Thesis Exhibition.

Each image seen in the show has been taken digitally by Quintero and through processes done by hand such as sanding, painting, adding and removing layers, adding charcoal, solvents, and other materials, until the image is complete. This textured image is then printed into large mixed media prints.

In the artist’s statement Quintero writes, “The work that I am making is an excavation of space.” By manipulating the space in the original image, the space becomes alive with color and intense formations due to the manual manipulations of diverse materials.

The image is excavated through the ability of the materials to layer over the interior landscape captured. Shown as objects and figures exhibit qualities of transition and adaptation, Quintero’s work investigates the built-up history of the interior places that exist in the liminal or in-between spaces experienced daily.

If you should have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact Donna Smith via email at smidl@rhodes.edu or by phone at 870-219-5182.

Jpg information: “Quintero_jpg” is Red Door, Mixed media print, 40x60”, 2008. Image courtesy the artist.

Soap box

Several weeks ago I had heard through the grapevine that Fredric Koeppel had been moved from writing art reviews at the Commercial Appeal and that the paper would no longer have weekly reviews of the visual arts, rather they would have contributions by freelance writers. The week after Koeppel’s review of Bobby Spillman’s show at L Ross, Ian Lemmonds had a short article that included an interview with Glenn Ligon. Since then it’s been all quiet at the CA on visual arts reviews.

I remember the dark days before Peggy Burch was the editor of the Playbook and the arts community would be thrilled to get a 100 word "Pick of the Week" in Friday's paper. As a curator I would be horrified to have internationally recognized artists showing at Rhodes and when they would ask about press for the show, I would tell them the sad story of the visual arts coverage in Memphis. It becomes a variation of the tree falling in the forest question: "if an artist has a show in Memphis and there's no press there to cover it, did anyone see it?" Since Koeppel has been regularly contributing to the Playbook many of us have come to appreciate the great press coverage.

While I realize how tough things are in the newspaper world these days, I know that things are tight and that difficult decisions have to be made. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at the ads in the Playbook (Casinos, restaurants, and movies) and figure out why it would pay to cover only music, theater, movies and restaurants. It also doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that we in the arts run our organizations on shoestring budgets our advertising money is at a minimum and as a result the arts community needs all coverage as we can get. Since the Playbook is free and on the stands six days a week, it acts like the Flyer in that people look to it for arts and entertainment information. (Don't get me started on the cruddy coverage we get with the Flyer.) The weeks when we are on the first page in the weekend rundown, our attendance stretches far beyond our normal snail and email mailing lists, this is even more so with a review of the exhibition. There are a number of reasons for the difficulty for the arts here, most of which are interdependent on each other. Outside of the normal coverage, reviews, previews, or features, the press rarely covers the well adjusted, successful artists, we normally only hear about censorship at the MCA gallery, an artist overcoming drug addiction to have a second chance, or something like the hubub over Tad Lauritzen Wright's Blue Parkway piece for UAC. (To get a real sense of the art community issues see the CA or Goner Records online message boards) I think this might contribute to the way the community sees art as strange or "other." I know that the turnout for the Elliot Perry Collection show was big because of Mr. Perry’s popularity but most people knew about it because of all the great coverage we got in the CA and the Memphis Flyer. I think our trouble with the visual arts isn't limited to our coverage in the press but I think it is a critical part of helping to make things better. I think the majority of the community isn't engaged in the visual arts, in part, because of a lack of press coverage and I think, in part, there's a lack of press coverage because the community isn't really engaged in the visual arts.

The Memphis press and community were all abuzz several years ago because of this idea of the Creative Class and what it can do for a city. At Rhodes we've just had a search for a new sculpture professor. Two of the people that flew in for the interview mentioned looking online at the Flyer and the CA to see what kind of coverage the press gave the visual arts. When people come here to check out the city they look to the press and the internet to get a sense of what's going on.

I'm worried that we'll go from being able to count on at least one, sometimes two, thoughtful, well written visual arts features in the playbook that we'll be looking at one every other week or worse.

I urge all of you to sit down and write a letter to the editor and send it off to them. This is a critical issue for our community of the arts and I hope you will have your voice heard. Peggy Burch can be emailed at burch@commercialappeal.com or straight to the editor at the commercial appeal Chris Peck at peck@commercialappeal.com.

713 Represent!

So when you're somewhere that's not home and someone brings up something cool that everyone knows about where you come from - and thinks it's cool, it's a good feeling.

On Friday, the UrbanArts Commission is screening a movie about the Project Row Houses in Houston. Although I don't actually know Rick Lowe, I know Robert Pruitt, the fella in charge of the project proposals. His work in itself is pretty rad - clearly a student (in the figurative sense) of Michael Ray Charles.

At any rate, the group of shotgun houses in the third ward is a great Htown institution and I hope that the movie is half as cool as the spaces and the artists that they fill them with.

Check it out - Third Ward, TX
Friday April 11 - 7:00 PM
Memphis College of Art Callicott Auditorium
1930 Poplar Avenue in Overton Park

PLUS, although it's a whole minute from now, on Thursday, May 8, Rick Lowe, the founder of Project Row Houses is doing an artist talk at MCA. He's gonna talk about where the project started, where it is, and where it's going. Callicott Auditorium, at 6:30 PM

Pixy Liao's Experimental Relationship at 2547 Broad Avenue

As the director for the Clough-Hanson Gallery part of my responsibilities include teaching a course in gallery management. Over the course of the semester the students and I visit the city’s museums, commercial galleries and alternative exhibition spaces. During the class conversations, the potentially pro-active role of the curator in the community is discussed. For the final project for the Gallery Management Course at Rhodes College, students conducted studio visits with local or regional artists in order to organize and execute an exhibition of an artist’s or artists’ work at a space of their choosing somewhere in the city. Today I am sending along the first press release for one of six exhibitions organized and curated by six of the students. Please note: Each show will have its own specific times and dates. Please feel free to contact me or the organizing student if you have any questions or concerns.
-Hamlett Dobbins
901.219.1943
dobbinsh@rhodes.edu


March 26, 2008
Contact: Britt Jenkins
Rhodes College
(864) 640-6939

For Immediate Release:
Adam Shaw Studio and Britt Jenkins are excited to announce a solo photography exhibition: Pixy Liao: Experimental Relationship

Experimental Relationship will run from Friday April 4th until Wednesday April 9th

The reception for the show will be held in the gallery (2547 Broad Avenue) from 6 - 9 p.m., Friday April 4, 2008.

A performance will take place in the gallery from 7 – 7:30 p.m.

Experimental Relationship will feature seven recent photographs from the talented young photographer, Pixy Liao. Hand processed color photographs radiate seductive colors that add to the intimate nature of the work’s content. These sensual color photographs show the artist’s investigation into the facets of relationships, but not necessarily her own. Consequently, a dynamic tension is achieved because of the work’s performance aspect. A summation of the work is best expressed from the following excerpt taken from her project’s description, “This project is more like an experiment to me, not a real document of my relationship. It may even have nothing to do with me or my boyfriend. It’s more like me throwing out questions and ideas about relationships. I have always doubted the routines of human beings. Why should a couple be a man and a woman? Why does man have to be a certain way? Why should woman be a certain way? I feel relationships are for more complicated and always changing, and it has lots of possibilities.”

Yijun Liao (Pixy) was born in Shanghai in 1979. She graduated from Shanghai International Studies University in 2002. After graduation she worked as a freelance graphic designer for three years before moving to the United States to study photography. She is currently a third year graduate student at the University of Memphis and will receive her MFA in December of 2008. She has participated in several group shows, including the Lantana Project’s class of 2006 and 2007 group exhibitions and in the Project’s 2007 Emerging Artists Series. Her work has been shown in the 2007 and 2008 Annual Juried Student Exhibition at the University of Memphis and in the “This and That”, exhibition at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. Her work has also been featured in the Chinese publications of Computer Arts and After 17 web magazine.

Adam Shaw Studio is free and open to the public and is located on 2547 Broad Avenue. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The gallery is closed on Saturday and Sunday. If you should have any questions please do not hesitate to contact Britt Jenkins via email at jenbl@rhodes.edu.

This exhibition is sponsored in part by the Center for Outreach and Development of the Arts at Rhodes College.

Jpg information: “PixyLiao_pr.jpg” is “How Long Can We Kiss?” from Experimental Relationship 2008, Image courtesy the artist.

There's a New Kid in Town

We have a new art space opening in Memphis. With a grand opening listed for May 2, 2008, we're happy to see another new member of the Memphis arts club. With the addition of Odessa and Rozelle Artists Guild, we're seeing quite a swell in the non-traditional gallery scene in town.

Five in One or VINI (think roman numerals) is located at 423 North Watkins and they have a spanking new website up at fiveinone.org

They are focusing on installation work and plan to feature Memphis artists and to also bring in folks from out of town. There are a couple of holes in their calendar, so if you've got a killer idea for an installation piece, you should give them a ring.