University Art Gallery

The University Art Gallery presents Portmanteau, a selection of works by Sewanee’s Senior Art Majors: Lizzie Butler, Patrick Berger, Compton Fields, Katie Hudson, Maggie Lines, Anna Marchetti, Dylan Orlady, Katherine Rogers, Jordan Rose, and Elizabeth Twork. Please join us for a series of events celebrating the exhibition. Portmanteau will open on April 13^th at 4:15 pm in Convocation Hall with brief remarks by the artists and a reception. The artists will formally present their work in a series of talks on Saturday, April 14^th in Convocation Hall, beginning at 1:00 pm. A Baccalaureate Reception in the University Art Gallery on Saturday, May 12^th from 1 to 3 pm will close the show, and the University Art Gallery’s 2011-2012 exhibition season.

The title of the exhibition, Portmanteau, refers to the merging of two seemingly disparate things to create something new. A word that combines the sounds and meanings of other words, a “portmanteau” compensates for the limitations of standardized language by creating unexpected hybrid forms. Similarly, art, in various media, combines forms and concepts in an attempt to describe the previously indescribable. By examining and expressing individual experience through art, and by juxtaposing the results, one may arrive at awareness of a greater, shared experience.

The Sewanee Art Majors of 2012 have built upon each other’s ideas in formulating their work. Portmanteau brings this work together to explore relationships, boundaries, estrangement, and impermanence. The photography of Dylan Orlady, Lizzie Butler, Compton Fields, and Katherine Rogers addresses these themes, as does Jordan Rose’s sculpture, drawing, and collage, Elizabeth Twork’s drawing and painting, Patrick Berger’s drawing and sculptural installations, Maggie Lines’s sculpture, Katie Hudson’s video and sculpture, and Anna Marchetti’s video, sculpture, and painting. This multimedia exhibition straddles gaps between media, and between contradictory interpretations of one’s place within the world. Portmanteau represents the work of ten young artists at the culmination of their academic careers at the University of the South, as they look ‘beyond the gates’ to new venues and fields of endeavor.

Sewanee’s University Art Gallery is located on Georgia Avenue on the campus of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.  The gallery is free, accessible, and open to the public. Hours are 10 – 5 Tuesday through Friday and 12 – 4 on Saturday and Sunday.  Please call (931) 598-1223 for more information.

The University Art Gallery of the University of the South presents “Sanford Biggers: Moon Medicine,” an exhibition of recent work by the internationally acclaimed artist Sanford Biggers, curated by Miki Garcia, Executive Director of the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum. “Moon Medicine” will be staged in both the University Art Gallery and in the Carlos Gallery of the Nabit Art Building on the campus of the University of the South. “Moon Medicine” opens to the public on Friday, February 17th at 4:30 with a talk by Biggers and Garcia, and a reception in Convocation Hall.

Biggers is a multimedia and performance artist whose work is by turns playful, thought provoking, and deeply moving. Drawing on influences from Japanese Zen Buddhism to hip hop culture, he explores identity as a fluid performance and draws attention to the surprising connections to be found between diverse cultures. In “Moon Medicine,” visitors are drawn into a carnivalesque world of music, saturated colors, mirrors, clown make up and dance. This world is both seductive and sinister, and the playful performance of identity is deadly serious – a fact recalled for viewers by the evocation of lynching with recurring tree and rope motifs. In the words of the artist, the exhibition “is a thematic, multi-disciplinary exploration … meant to broaden and complicate our read on American history.”

On Saturday, February 18th, “Moon Medicine” will be part of the University of the South’s first campus gallery walk. Between 2:30 and 4:30 pm, the public is invited to visit multiple exhibition spaces on campus and to meet artists and curators. In addition to “Moon Medicine” in the UAG and the Carlos Galleries, University Archives and Special Collections is hosting “Preserving a Heritage: Fine Art Prints by Jonathan Green” in its new exhibition space. Complimentary light refreshments provided. The walk will be followed at 5 p.m. by a jazz reception for the artists and curator in McGriff Alumni House. Space at the evening reception is limited, please reserve a spot by calling (931) 598 1195. Reception tickets for this event are $30. Payment can be made via the link on the left of this page.

Biggers’ work was recently celebrated in the solo exhibition “Sweet Funk: An Introspective” at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and in the show “Cosmic Voodoo Circus” at the SculptureCenter, New York. Biggers’ installations, videos and performances have appeared in venues worldwide, including the Tate Britain and Tate Modern, London, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and at institutions in China, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Poland, and Russia. He grew up in Los Angeles, received his BFA from Morehouse University in Atlanta and his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is the recipient of many awards and grants, including the prestigious William H. Johnson Prize. He was recently a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies at the Carpenter Center and a Visiting Associate Professor of Sculpture at the Office for the Arts, both at Harvard University, MA, and has been on the faculty at Virginia Commonwealth Sculpture and Extended Media program. Biggers is now an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University.

Miki Garcia has been the Executive Director at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum since 2005, where she curated “An Expanded Field of Possibilities” (2009), “Glass Love: Contemporary Art and Surf” (2007-08), and “Marc Swanson: Beginning to See the Light” (2007) among several other group and solo projects with local, national, and international artists. Previously, Garcia worked at the Public Art Fund, New York, NY and at the Museum of Contemporary Arts San Diego, San Diego, CA. She has also participated as guest curator at El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY, and as a lecturer and panelist for various organizations including California Community Foundation, Art Matters Foundation, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs. Garcia holds an M.A. in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin, TX and a B.A. in Art History from Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY.

Sewanee’s University Art Gallery is located on Georgia Avenue on the campus of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Hours are 10 – 5 Tuesday through Friday and 12 – 4 on Saturday and Sunday.  Please call (931) 598-1223 for more information.  The Carlos Gallery of the Nabit Art Building is located at 105 Kennerly Road. Both galleries are free, accessible and open to the public. Public parking for the University Art Gallery is available behind the Fulford Admissions Building and DuPont Library, and parking for the Carlos Gallery is available behind the Nabit Art Building, off of Kennerley Road.

“Moon Medicine” was made possible in part by the generous support of the Friends of the University Art Gallery and by a Rural Arts Project Support grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission. Thank you!

Sewanee’s University Art Gallery is pleased to present Bryan LeBoeuf: Fight and Flight. LeBoeuf’s gorgeously painted figurative canvases depict complex relationships and open-ended narratives. The beauty and enigmatic subject matter of the paintings engage the viewer emotionally and intellectually. We empathize, identify, and wonder. What is happening? What will happen next?

LeBoeuf and Dr. Lauryl Tucker, Assistant Professor of English at the University of the South, will discuss the work in a public dialogue on Friday, December 2nd at 4:30 in the University Art Gallery. The reception will begin at 4:15, and continue after the talk. The exhibition will be on view through February 12th, 2012. Please note that the gallery will be closed for the University of the South’s Winter Break, December 15th through January 18th.

A native of rural Gulf Coast Louisiana, Bryan LeBoeuf now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He received his BFA from Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO and his MFA from the New York Academy of Art, New York, NY. He primarily exhibits in New York, but he has also shown his work in the Realism Invitational in San Francisco, and in a solo exhibition at the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, GA. LeBoeuf has received awards including the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award, the Prince of Wales Foundation Prize, and the Merreville Foundation Award. Several of his paintings have been acquired by public collections, including The Forbes Collection and The Flint Institute of Art. His paintings were featured in the 2004 film P.S..

Sewanee’s University Art Gallery is located on Georgia Avenue on the campus of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.  The gallery is free, accessible, and open to the public. Hours are 10 – 5 Tuesday through Friday and 12 – 4 on Saturday and Sunday.  Please call (931) 598-1223 for more information.

Sewanee’s University Art Gallery is pleased to present Nichole Maury: Patterns of Behavior. Maury combines the processes of printmaking and drawing to create subtle, methodically crafted images that explore the meaningful tension between the individual handmade mark and the repetition of ordered systems. Maury and Dr. Jeff Thompson, Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of the South, will discuss the work in a public dialogue on Friday, October 7th at 4:30 in the University Art Gallery. A reception will follow. The exhibition will be on view through November 20th, 2011. Please note that the gallery will be closed for the University of the South’s Fall Break, October 15th through 18th.

Maury has traced the genesis of her current work to the experience of playing with coloring books as a child, to trying to fill in the printed black lines of the page with perfect, crayon marks of her own, and to the impulse, in her words, “to take an image and make it my own, mark by mark.” While printed matter has connotations of impersonal authority and repetitive order, the handmade, drawn mark is inevitably idiosyncratic. In her work Maury plays with these distinctions, combining found printed materials with her own printed imagery and drawn marks. Her images are visual records of an individual repeating an ordered ritual over time, but the result is images that evoke systems teetering on the edge of chaos. As she writes, “[i]n repetition there is order and structure, but also endless variation. By trying to create a perfect mark by hand, its individuality and imperfections become more and more apparent.”

Nichole Maury lives in Kalamazoo, MI where she teaches printmaking and drawing at Western Michigan University.  Maury earned her BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her MFA from the University of Iowa. Her prints and drawings have been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including the International Print Center New York, the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids, MI and Scuola di Grafica, Venice, Italy.  Her work has been featured in the Midwest Edition of New American Paintings (vol 89) and Printmakers Today (Schiffer Publishing, 2010) and can be found in the collections of the Midwest Museum of Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and the Kala Art Institute.
Sewanee’s University Art Gallery is located on Georgia Avenue on the campus of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.  The gallery is free, accessible, and open to the public. Hours are 10 – 5 Tuesday through Friday and 12 – 4 on Saturday and Sunday.  Please call (931) 598-1223 for more information.

Sewanee’s University Art Gallery will open the 2011 – 2012 exhibition season on August 30th with Greg Pond’s documentary video installation Born in Trenchtown. The installation weaves together social, architectural, and political histories of the area, allowing Trenchtown residents to tell their own stories. Pond will present his work in an artist’s talk on Friday, September 23rd at 4:30 in the University Art Gallery. A reception will follow. The installation will be on view through October 2nd, 2011. Please note that due to its mature subject matter the installation may not be suitable for young viewers.

Trenchtown has a complex history. Founded by the cousins Alexander Bustamante and Norman Manley, the first housing in the district had utopian aspirations. Modeled on communal rural living with shared verandas and courtyards, the initial development housed World War II veterans and rural Jamaicans migrating to Kingston to look for work, and is credited with fostering much of the music and cultural heritage for which Jamaica is known worldwide.

The district’s housing, however, soon became a political tool. In the pursuit of parliamentary seats, further development was designed to accommodate large numbers of political supporters of either the Jamaican Labor Party or the People’s National Party. Designed to serve the needs of those at the highest levels of Jamaican society, newer development no longer provided residents with the same social and cultural opportunities, and was distinctly divided along political lines. Violence between the political gangs of these rival neighborhoods began in 1976 and spread throughout Jamaica. It persists today, in a culture that connects the most impoverished neighborhoods in the capital with the highest levels of power in the government.

Born in Trenchtown unfolds across three screens, and is programmed to create a dynamic experience of the complicated history of the district. Viewers travel the maze of holes in the walls between tenement yards, punched through when it was too dangerous to walk on the streets, consider the conditions that created Trenchtown, and hear the stories of residents. Many of the older inhabitants have witnessed the entire history of the district unfold. The perceptions of younger residents, who did not know the community before the violence started, are markedly different.

The video installation was created in collaboration with Sewanee’s Dixon Myers and Jamaican architect Christopher Whims-Stone. Production, post-production, and editorial contributors include Jesse Thompson, Natalie Baxter, Sam Sanderson, Charlotte Caldwell and Mary Evelyn Pritchard. Continue Reading »

We have a very exciting exhibition season ahead of us in 2011-2012.  The gallery will reopen on August 25th with the video installation Born in Trenchtown. Created by sculpture, sound and electronic media artist Greg Pond, a University of the South faculty member, the installation features a documentary created in collaboration with Sewanee’s Dixon Myers, Jamaican architect Christopher Whims-Stone, and recent alumni Natalie Baxter, Sam Sanderson, Charlotte Caldwell and Mary Evelyn Pritchard.

Nichole Maury’s subtle, methodically crafted prints and drawings will be showcased in our second exhibition of the season, Patterns of Behavior.

Bryan LeBoeuf’s gorgeous and enigmatic figurative paintings will fill the gallery for Fight and Flight in December, January and February.

Internationally acclaimed artist Sanford Biggers will come to campus in February for the thought-provoking multimedia exhibition Moon Medicine, curated by Miki Garcia of the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum. Support for this exhibition has been provided by the Friends of the University Art Gallery and by a Rural Arts Project Support grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission – “the arts…changing lives!”

In April and May the gallery will present the thesis works of Sewanee’s very talented graduating Art majors: Patrick Berger, Lizzie Butler, Compton Fields, Katie Hudson, Maggie Lines, Anna Marchetti, Kelly O’Mara, Dylan Orlady, Katherine Rogers, Jordan Rose, and Elizabeth Twork.

The University Art Gallery at the University of the South, Sewanee, will close the 2010-2011 exhibition year with “A Plunge Beneath the Surface of the Visible,” a selection of works by Sewanee’s senior art majors: Caitlin Alderfer, Glenn Bingham, Elizabeth Blaney, Jack Dolci, Kelly Garrett, Carly Grimm, Lauren Maggart, Lizzie McCleskey, Hanna Moran, Mary Evelyn Pritchard, Kathryn Rogers, Elizabeth Shortridge, and Alex White. Please join us in Convocation and the University Art Gallery on Friday, April 15th at 2:00 pm for the opening reception and a series of artist’s talks, as follows:

2:00 – Glenn Bingham
2:30 – Elizabeth Blaney
3:00 – Jack Dolci
3:30 – Kelly Garrett
4:00 – Carly Grimm
4:30 – Hanna Moran
5:00 – Mary Evelyn Pritchard
5:30 – Katrhyn Rogers
6:00 – Alex White

The graduating seniors will also be honored with a closing reception in the gallery on May 14th, from 1 to 3 pm.

The title of the exhibition, “A Plunge Beneath the Surface of the Visible,” is a quotation from Steven Millhauser’s “In the Reign of Harad IV,” published in The New Yorker in April of 2006. In this short story a maker of miniatures is compelled to create ever smaller and ever more challenging artwork, to the point where neither he nor his viewers can easily see its perfection. Full appreciation of the work requires seeing and understanding beyond “the surface of the visible.” For the University of the South’s graduating senior art majors, this story evokes the journey they have made during their time at Sewanee.  Like the miniaturist in the story, these young artists have been striving to create more and more challenging work. Like the miniaturist in the story, they are working with formal and conceptual elements that encourage the viewer to consider their work on a deeper level.

These thirteen artists work in a variety of media, often stepping across boundaries and combining media to express themselves.  Mary Evelyn Pritchard, Lauren Maggart, and Elizabeth Blaney use sculpture, video and multimedia installations. Jack Dolci combines sculpture and painting. Lizzie McCleskey works with both casting and ceramics.  Glenn Bingham, Hanna Moran, Elizabeth Shortridge, and Alex White are all painters, whose works show a broad range of styles and content.  Both Caitlin Alderfer and Kathryn Rogers mix collage and painting.  Finally, Kelly Garrett and Carly Grimm both draw and paint.

“A Plunge Beneath the Surface of the Visible” represents a culminating point in the work of these thirteen artists and the moment of their “plunge” out of the academic world into a new future beyond Sewanee.  Please take the opportunity to see the works of these thirteen emerging artists, and to journey with them “beneath the surface of the visible.”

Sewanee’s University Art Gallery is located at 68 Georgia Avenue on the campus of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.  The gallery is free, accessible, and open to the public. Hours are 10 – 5 Tuesday through Friday and 12 – 4 on Saturday and Sunday. Public parking is available behind Fulford Hall, 735 University Avenue. Please call (931) 598-1223 for more information.

Sewanee’s University Art Gallery is very pleased to present “The New English Art Club: Figurative Painting from Britain,” an exhibition of accomplished landscapes, still lives and portraits by eight recent members of the New English Art Club: Thomas Coates, John Ward, Ken Howard, Benjamin Sullivan, Leslie Worth, Peter Brown, Michael Reynolds, and Melissa Scott-Miller. In this exhibition Coates’ painterly landscapes appear alongside Sullivan’s minutely observed interiors, nude studies appear alongside unsparing portraits, and the University of the South appears alongside views of London and Venice.

“The New English Art Club: Figurative Painting from Britain” will be on view in the University Art Gallery from February 19th through April 10th, 2011. Opening events will begin at 4:30 pm on Saturday, February 19th in the University Art Gallery with a reception and an artist’s talk by the painter Thomas Coates, a former president of both the New English Art Club and of the Royal Society of British Artists. Coates will lead a drawing and pastels workshop on Sunday, February 20th between 1 and 3 pm in the Nabit Art Building. The workshop is open to the public. Donations to the Friends of the University Art Gallery are welcomed. Space is limited, so please contact Shelley MacLaren (598-1223) soon to register. Benjamin Harvey, Associate Professor of Art History at Mississippi State University, will give a public lecture “Manet or the Post-Impressionists? Roger Fry and the New English Art Club, ca. 1910″ on March 24th at 6 p.m.. Please note that the gallery will be closed during the University of the South’s academic break from March 10th through 20th.

At its founding in 1886, the alternative title proposed for The New English Art Club was “The Society of Anglo-French Painters”, a title that clearly expresses the organization’s original inspiration. The young British painters who founded the group imitated progressive French Realist and Impressionist styles of painting, and painted the new subjects French painters had found in lives of people of the lower classes, in rural retreats and in modern city life. Looking for an alternative system to that offered by the conservative Royal Academy of British Art, they were also impressed by the new ways Parisian artists had found to exhibit outside of the traditional Salon. Accordingly they established their group as an organization where decisions about who could join or exhibit with the group were decided by majority vote, not by a tightly controlled jury favoring one particular style.

One hundred and twenty-five years later, The New English Art Club, established “by artists, for artists,” still thrives, and still embraces painters working in diverse styles and media. The art world and Club’s role within it, however, have changed completely. Rather than acting as a venue for the most avant-garde art movements, the New English Art Club now champions the figurative tradition, upholding, in one member’s words, “the value of direct observation coupled with inventiveness, painterliness and imagination.”

The enduring appeal of this approach is evident in the enthusiasm and dedication of the small group of Kentucky collectors who have worked to bring the paintings in this exhibition to the United States over the last twenty-five years.

Sewanee’s University Art Gallery is located at 68 Georgia Avenue on the campus of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.  The gallery is free, accessible, and open to the public. Hours are 10 – 5 Tuesday through Friday and 12 – 4 on Saturday and Sunday. Please call (931) 598-1223 for more information, or visit our website at http://www.sewanee.edu/gallery.

Sewanee’s Carlos and University Art Galleries are pleased to present Glenn Herbert Davis’ a Pale; place into parts, a two-part installation exploring demarcations of space and definitions of place. A “pale” is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “a stake, fence or boundary….” By extension, a pale is also a domain, a territory, or a field of knowledge. To go “beyond the pale” is to violate boundaries; to behave in a way that transgresses acceptable limits. A simple piece of wood driven into the ground is a statement about power. Are you in or are you out?

Opening events will begin on December 3rd in the Carlos Gallery of the Nabit Art Building at 4:30 with a brief artist’s talk, and continue in the University Art Gallery at 5:15 with a performance by the artist. Refreshments will be provided in both galleries. Please join us at one or both locations to see the work unfold. The installations will be on view from December 3rd, 2010 through February 13th, 2011, with the exception of Sewanee’s Winter Break, from December 17th to January 17th.

In his work Glenn Herbert Davis explores “relationships between the individual human body and (contrived) systems….” By creating buildings, tools and pieces of furniture that frustrate viewer’s expectations about function and use, he seeks to challenge the assumptions that inform our behavior as we respond to our environment. Davis cites a diverse range of influences for his work. These include architects like Gerrit Rietveld, for his engagement with materials, and artists like Chris Burden, for the challenges he posed to the limitations of his own body. They also include the films of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, for the witty and practical triumph of their characters over impersonal systems. Davis received his MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfields, Michigan in 2000. He was recently awarded a 2010 Oklahoma Visual Arts Fellowship from the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition.

A significant portion of the lumber used in these installations was salvaged. This was made possible by the diligent efforts of Sewanee’s Physical Plant Services, as well as Associate Professor Greg Pond, Tyler Cooney, and the University Art Gallery’s team of gallery attendants. Their efforts are greatly appreciated.

Sewanee’s University Art Gallery is located at 68 Georgia Avenue on the campus of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. The gallery is free, accessible, and open to the public. Hours are 10 – 5 Tuesday through Friday and 12 – 4 on Saturday and Sunday. Please call (931) 598-1223 for more information.

The Carlos Gallery of the Nabit Art Building is located at 105 Kennerly Road on the campus of the University of the South. Parking is available in the gravel parking lot behind the building. The gallery is free, accessible, and open to the public. Hours are 8 – 5 Tuesday through Friday and 12 – 5 on Saturday and Sunday. Please call (931) 598-1870 for more information.

Sewanee’s University Art Gallery is pleased to present Nell Breyer’s After Disappearance, an exploration of human movement through live streaming and video installation. Breyer will present her work in an artist’s talk on Friday, October 8th at 4:30 in the University Art Gallery. A reception will follow. The exhibition will be on view from October 8th through November 21st, 2010. On October 29th at 4:30, Professor James Carlson will perform an improvisational musical piece in response to the exhibition.

In her work Nell Breyer explores the experience, understanding, and representation of movement. Beginning from the premise that the most essential element of movement is change, Breyer worked with software engineers to develop a video-processing program that captures and displays only those elements that change between frames. As a result of this collaboration, visitors to After Disappearance will experience an interactive environment that makes their own actions part of the artwork. Gestures and motion will be captured and projected, “creating a living, unfolding and ephemeral drawing.” With After Disappearance Breyer seeks to “reveal what is both vibrant and evasive about the moving body” and to make us more conscious of our own physical experience.

Nell Breyer is an artist and research affiliate at M.I.T.’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies and the M.I.T. Program for Art, Culture and Technology. She received her B.A. in Art and Humanities from Yale in 1994, an M.Sc. in Cognitive Neuroscience from Oxford University in 1997, and an M.S. in Media Arts and Sciences from M.I.T. in 2002. Her work has received wide national and international recognition, with choreographic works performed at locations from the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, to Her Majesty’s Haymarket Theater in London, England, to the Bangladesh National Museum Auditorium. Her commissioned public art and video installation works have received similar wide recognition, appearing in places such as the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rovereto and Trento, Italy.