Past Exhibitions
Fall 2017- Spring 2018
Spring 2018 MFA Thesis Exhibition
Flesh Out
March 23- April 6
The Spring 2018 MFA thesis exhibition Flesh Out features the work of Kelly Cook, Ellen Dempsey, Bienvenido Howard, Jennalyn Krulish, and Lacy Mitcham. An investigation of conceptual and physical elements is "fleshed out" as they emerge in the graduate work of these five artists. The exhibition is an amalgamation of notions about what it means to be human and art's incarnational qualities. Similar to a human body, enveloped in living skin, the exhibition reveals layers of artistic, social, personal, and philosophical connections.
Sculptures and installation by Lacy Mitcham center on the repulsive and attractive qualities of the human body, reflecting her studies of psychological and physical maladies. The intangible nature of human connection is conveyed through the metaphor of social interaction in the watercolors of Kelly Cook. Ellen Dempsey's furniture sculptures, infused with humor, utilize quotidian objects to emphasize discarded or overlooked properties. Jennalyn Krulish's paintings of ecological relationships share specific knowledge about human involvement in the biosphere. Painter Bienvenido Howard deals with the liminal space between the viewer and portraiture. His work echoes the undergirding theme of "Flesh Out" which expresses how artistic works exemplify a process of continual growth.
Virginia Overton
Untitled
January 20 – February 16 (Part I); January 20 – March 9 (Part II)
Virginia Overton, Untitled (sign), 2018. Light box.Installation view. Photography: Chip Pankey.
This exhibition features new work and site-specific installation by internationally recognized artist and University of Memphis alumna Virginia Overton. Known for large-scale installations and sculpture spanning the natural and manmade worlds, Overton is interested in the past, present, and future lives of her repurposed materials and how they exist in space and time. The importance of place is central to her work, as she intuitively responds to a site—whether the architecture of a gallery space or the environs of a vast field.
For this exhibition, a kind of homecoming for the Brooklyn-based artist, Overton returned to U of M where she received both her MFA in 2005 and BFA in 2002. The exhibition space, the Fogelman Galleries, did not exist when Overton was a student but was refashioned from the old Law School library in 2013. Thus, it is a place that is at once both old and new to the artist. Typical of her practice, Overton foraged for material locally, using old, wooden window frames found in her former advisor Greely Myatt's studio and overturned pedestals from the gallery's storage room. Often minimalist in form, her work playfully extends beyond its structural limits into other realms, as experienced in the chorus of trickling water in Untitled (Water Feature for Gallery B) (2018) and in the uncertain sway of the fan in Untitled (oscillator) (2018). The exhibition also includes a lightbox sign—a feature that has now become customary for the artist's solo exhibitions.
In conjunction with the exhibition, Overton worked with current U of M graduate students from various disciplines housed in the Department of Art to produce an illustrated catalogue. The publication includes a collaborative essay by Samira Rahbe and Olivia Wall (both MA, Art History), a written piece by artist Ellen Dempsey (MFA, Studio Art), and was designed by Chad Malone (MFA, Graphic Design). The catalogue, will be released at a book signing and exhibition walkthrough with the artist on February 15th from 5 to 7 PM in the Fogelman Galleries.
The exhibition catalogue was generously supported by The University of Memphis Graduate School and the Alumni Association- a testament to student work both past and present.
Fall 2017 BFA Thesis Exhibition
Still Strippin'
November 17 – December 7, 2017
Still Strippin', the Fall 2017 BFA thesis exhibition, features work by four graduating seniors of The University of Memphis Department of Art: Devin Picchi, Amira Randolph, Kristin Smith, and Sadie Tomes. The exhibition is a compilation of works in a variety of media including painting and photography. The presentation celebrates the completion of undergraduate studies and the culmination of each student's artistic exploration and experiences.
Fall 2017 MFA Thesis Exhibition
Lurkmoar: Jesse Delira
November 17 – December 7, 2017
Lurkmoar, the MFA thesis exhibition of Jesse DeLira, contains photographs, found objects, and written materials produced using a variety of processes, both analog and digital. The work itself is based on a style of investigation that is termed "conspiracy theory" or "dot-connecting." From this viewpoint, geopolitical happenings are positioned as having ulterior motives. This presumes that an underbelly of powerful agents exists to control and manipulate current affairs so that natural and human resources are harvested for a use that is deemed appropriate. This dark lens sees the world as a stage for an elaborate ruse. If uncovered, it reveals to the awakened a totalizing system of technocratic slavery. There are a wide range of agents that play part in this supposed conspiracy.
This body of work focuses on the Illuminati, the Catholic Church, CERN, Freemasonry, occult ritual, and political parties. For the conspiracy theorist, these seemingly disparate subjects often overlap with each other; for this reason, the work itself is multi-layered, cacophonic, and occulted. Left to be distorted and confused, these bits of information are equally critical of both producer and subject as half-truths are rendered halfway visible.
Sally Heller
Mind over Mayhem
September 22 – November 9, 2017
Sally Heller creates large scale installations out of everyday matter. These improbable landscapes, made of artificial debris, reflect the chaotic state of mass market culture, nature, and consumerism. Some of the materials she uses include fabric, netting, broken plastic items, industrial wire, and chain.
Mind over Mayhem conveys a sense of the world as a turbulent place where we can hopefully use our minds to control its volatility. It is an apt title for an artist whose process is shaped by fluidity and spontaneity. Entering the gallery space for the first time, Heller gets a sense of how to install the boundaries of the piece and, in collaboration with U of M art students, starts constructing the perimeters and rigging of the work. The installations are site-specific, growing organically as she subtracts, adds, and refines the elements. Like a three-dimensional drawing, the gallery is filled with overlapping lines with a variety of materials suspended and layered in space. Often there is no focal point, but rather an environment to be experienced.
Su WeiChu
Echo's Bones
August 28 – September 15, 2017
Echo's Bones features the work of University of Memphis alumna Su WeiChu (BFA, 2016). The exhibition explores the impermanence and mortality of the ecological system. The installation, comprised of textile-based objects, blurs the boundaries of sculpture and painting. Taken together, they consider the metamorphosis of the spirit of nature often found in mythology and folklore—combining elements of obscure, fragmented geological formations with anthropomorphic biological systems.
Faculty in the Department of Art at the University of Memphis selected Su from the Fall 2016 and Spring 2017 graduating Bachelor of Fine Arts classes for this prestigious solo exhibition. An annual tradition, this exhibition provides an outstanding graduate with the opportunity to present a body of work as well as develop and execute an exhibition concept with Fogelman Galleries staff.
Born and raised in Taipel, Taiwan, Su received her BFA from the University of Memphis with a concentration in Studio Arts. Her work has been featured in the 32nd Annual Juried Student Exhibition at the Art Museum of the University of Memphis, winning a Merit Award. Her work was also awarded the Undergraduate Award in the Best of Memphis exhibition organized by Box Gallery. She has exhibited in the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Crosstown Arts, Marshall Arts Gallery, and Memphis College of Art's Hyde Gallery.
There May Be No Before at All
Selected Moving Image Works
September 8 – October 27, 2017
This exhibition features selected moving image works that use the human form to interrogate the slippage of place and time. How does the human form transgress from one location to another, from one body to another, from one moment to another? How do gender, gesture, and language inform embodiment and how does the medium of moving image shape this process? The international roster of artists explores physical transgression, gender expression, the death drive, and the archive. The exhibition includes the work of Vika Kirchenbauer + Mysti (Germany), Laura Henno (France), J. Louise Makary (United States), Marianna Milhorat (United States), and Patrick Staff (United States/United Kingdom).
There May Be No Before at All is curated by artist Madsen Minax, Assistant Professor in Time-based Media at the University of Vermont.
Jose' Torres-Tama
Aliens, Immigrants, and Other Evildoers
September 14, 2017
Aliens, Immigrants & Other Evildoers is a sci-fi Latino noir performance solo by NEA award-winning multidisciplinary artist José Torres-Tama. It explores the current persecution of Latino immigrants across the land of the free. Satirizing the status of immigrants as "extraterrestrials" through a sci-fi prism informed by short films that spoof The Matrix and Star Wars, the artist shape-shifts into numerous "aliens" who challenge the hypocrisy of a country built by immigrants that vilifies the same people whose labor it readily exploits.
Politically provocative, visually engaging, and strategically comic, Torres-Tama's puts a face on the vilified "alien other," and asks, "Since the Pilgrims arrived without papers, why were they not deported?"
Aliens, Immigrants & Other Evildoers was developed through a National Performance Network Creation Fund award from the NPN, and with the commissioning support of MECA in Houston, the Ashé Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans, and GALA Hispanic Theatre in Washington, DC.