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For release: August 31, 2009
For press information, contact Simone Notter Wilson (901) 678-4164
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| Greely Myatt in front of his Quilts in 2009. |
Greely Myatt and exactly Twenty Years, is a survey of works by the Mississippi-born sculptor and University of Memphis
professor of art that will be on display at museums and galleries throughout Memphis.
The largest body of work will be shown in a collaborative exhibition at the Art Museum
at the University of Memphis (AMUM) and Rhodes College's Clough-Hanson Gallery. The
two-part exhibition opens with a reception on Friday, September 11 at 4:30 pm (AMUM)
and 6 pm (Clough-Hanson).The lecture and opening receptions at AMUM and Clough-Hanson
are free and open to the public.
Myatt will give an artist talk at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art on Thursday, September
10 at 7 pm.
Other exhibition sites include the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, The Dixon Gallery
and Gardens, The Metal Museum, Power House Memphis, MCA On the Street Gallery, and
the P & H Center for the Arts. Myatt will show new work at David Lusk Gallery, September
1-26. You can see Myatt in a recent interview with ArtsMemphis TV.
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| Greely Myatt installs Monument at the Art Museum of the U of M in 1990. |
Originally from Aberdeen, Mississippi, Greely Myatt lives and works as a sculptor
in Memphis. He received his BFA from Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi
in 1975 and his MFA from the University of Mississippi, in Oxford in 1980. Myatt joined
the University of Memphis Department of Art in 1989. He is professor of art at the
U of M and associate chair of the Department of Art.
Myatt's sculptures and installations have been exhibited in more than 25 solo shows
and numerous group exhibitions across the United States, Europe and Japan. He has
received grants and fellowships from the Tennessee Arts Commission, the University
of Memphis, the University of Georgia, and Alternate Roots, Atlanta. Myatt is the
recipient of the 1994 Mississippi Arts and Letters Visual Arts Award, and was an exchange
artist to Israel in 1998. He is represented by David Lusk Gallery in Memphis, and
Sandler Hudson Gallery in Atlanta.
"In my work I have consistently attempted to combine art historical references with
vernacular influences," Myatt explains. "As a native of the rural south I have a tremendous
respect for work that is made by hand and guided by the heart and eye. However as
an educated artist I understand the importance of the mind in the process. To state
my approach to the making of art in the simplest and most direct manner, I have tried
to use these: the hand, the eye, the heart, and the mind, to shape my work in both
the making and the viewing."
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| Whip, steel, bronze, cherry. Collection of June West. |
"And let's not underestimate Myatt's stunning inventiveness and freedom in selecting
materials to create his sculptures and installations," writes James Yood in the exhibition's
catalog. "Elsewhere in his work since 1997 one could find zippers, Styrofoam, cookie
tins, pool cues, gourds, light bulbs, bags of sugar, soap suds, window frames, crutches,
buckets, and more, not exactly standard stuff from the art supplies store. This is
more than just that 1970s concept of seeing the world as a jumbled museum, it's a
kind of material empathy, an attentiveness to possibilities in substances that is
always surprising and made to seem inevitable."
In an article that appeared in River City: A Journal of Contemporary Culture in the
Summer of 1997, Katy Siegel, associate professor of art history at Hunter College-CUNY,
said the following about Myatt's work, "Greely Myatt clearly addresses the traditions
of his native South, but his work is as good as anything you see in New York. I want
to emphasize that Myatt's work is purposefully regional in form and content, not accidentally
regional, understood as provincial outlook or lesser quality. In Myatt's hands, the
South is different from, not less than New York, and the art you see in the South
is distinct from, not less than the normative forms of contemporary art.
Greely Myatt and exactly Twenty Years
Art Museum at the University of Memphis (AMUM)
September 12-November 7, 2009
Opening Reception, September 11, from 4:30 to 7 pm
Clough-Hanson Gallery
September 11-October 16, 2009
Opening Reception, September 11, from 6 to 8 pm
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art
August 15, 2009-January 3, 2010
The Dixon Gallery and Gardens
August 28-November 14, 2009
The Metal Museum
August 28-October 5, 2009
Power House Memphis
August 28-October 5, 2009
Opening Reception, September 12, 2009 from 5 to 7 pm
David Lusk Gallery
September 1-26, 2009
Opening Reception, September 4, 2009 from 6 to 8 pm
P & H Center for the Arts
September 18-October 5, 2009
MCA On the Street Gallery
September 24-October 17, 2009
Opening Reception, September 25, 2009 from 6 to 9 pm
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