The University of Tennessee School of Art Faculty Exhibition is the latest showcase of the Ewing Gallery. Opened on Oct. 23 and running until Dec. 15, the exhibit is a unique opportunity for students as well as fellow professors to see the work and approaches of various faculty members.
“They get to see the diversity of approaches to contemporary art-making,” said Director and Curator of the Ewing Gallery Sam Yates. “(They get to see) works that have a traditional format and traditional technique to state-of-the-art time-based media.”
Most striking upon entering the exhibit are Tom Riesing’s calm and soothing “Sunrise — Painted Bluff” and “Last Night — Painted Bluff.” He also has the quiet forest scene, “Above the Bald River Falls.”
Riesing said in a phone interview the paintings were inspired by a project he and a professor in anthropology were involved in at Guntersville, Alabama.
“He was doing studies on pictographs that were painted 800 years ago on the side of a cliff,” Riesing said. “I was down there as an artist to record and document those pictographs. So, I did the drawings, and I decided to do some paintings.”
“(The Faculty exhibit) is one of many exhibits where (students) get to see different kinds of work,” Riesing said. “It gives students an idea of how we talk about things that interest us and gives a little bit more complete picture of their teachers and education.”
Not everything is as universal and acceptable as Riesing’s work, however. Some command even more complex thinking that does not always get to an easily discernible conclusion.
Michael Brakke’s “Mistaken Drawing Series” is an example. It shows several dimensions of a house from different viewpoints. In the guidebook, Brakke claims the meaning for him is still elusive, or that he would like the meaning to be elusive for the beholder. It is definitely left open to interpretation.
Another interesting display is the mixed media piece from Emily Ward Bivens, entitled “8th and State,” which is comprised of old, broken and disorganized china heaped behind a rough, tattered door. This piece in the corner is particularly antique with dust circumnavigating the display. Yet another is Beauvais Lyons’ paintings depicting plates of organs and symbols representing medical science. In the guidebook, Lyons says it is part of a subject called “mock academics,” in which the organs are fictional but look real. He also looks to “walk the line between beauty and the grotesque.”
On the other hand, other pieces are as obvious and resonating as Riesing’s work. On the back wall of the Ewing Gallery is somewhat of a landscape of unsorted photos from a tragedy, Baldwin Lee’s “Hurricane Katrina, Waveland, Mississippi.”
Marcia Goldenstein’s “One Mile, An Artificial Cosmos” depicts another quiet forest scene, this time with several different points of views. Even more tranquil is her lovely “Night Walk.”
Perhaps the best collection of different styles would be Wade Lough’s work. One piece displayed depicts a ball player (who appears to be retired Darryl Strawberry) in a rather colorful, evocative work. Another, titled “Stop Little Pricks” seems much more obvious in its message. It shows a metaphor of a nail about to hit a balloon with the caption, “stop little pricks worldwide that puncture the innocent.” Finally, his “Fear the Heedless Ones” shares the same color and vibrancy as the other two, despite the evil-looking North American shaman shown below.
The exhibit also shows video, multi-image performances from Norman Magdan called “Dreamscapes.” The performances shown are “Anima Animus,” “Forgotten Lineages,” “Prometheus” and “Skitso-Frenetic.” They are notable for being offbeat and symbolic in nature, perhaps the least accessible pieces in the exhibit. With further study and an open mind, however, one can see the truths such as movement that the films convey.
The Ewing Gallery exhibit is open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. from Tuesday to Friday, and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday in the Art and Architecture building. For more information on the Ewing Gallery as well as the faculty exhibit or upcoming exhibits, navigate to http://www.ewing-gallery.org.