The Dogwood Regional Fine Art Exhibit is held each April in Downtown Knoxville as part of the overall Dogwood Arts Festival. The Regional is a juried exhibit open to artists residing within a 300 mile perimeter of Knoxville. There are few size and media restrictions in the exhibit, which results in a strongly progressive show with a mix of traditional, professional and emergent artists. This year's exhibit had 64 pieces by 39 artists from five states. Our juror was Ruth Grover, director of Cress Gallery at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga.
The opening reception on First Friday, April 2nd had at least 1,000 visitors come through. The usual wine and food laden receptions Knoxville is notorious for held out for most of the night. The crowd was full with city officials, UTK and Pellissippi professors, students, regional artists and art lovers, and tourists visiting the area.
Just before the big crowd hit.
Visitors meander past Amanda Ladymon's "Entrails" and a Lauren Karnitz painting.
Gerry Moll's environmental found object sculpture, "Saved and Drowning" to the left, popular food table, catered by The Lunch Box, to the right.
Artist Chris McAdoo and family.
Jorge Gomez del Campo's "Machine About Love, Death, and Dancing" was played with by everyone from children to an enthusiastic group of Physics PHD’s and PHD candidates from UT.
Or sometimes just wearing your own exhibit.
Professor Beauvais Lyons, (right), head of the UTK printmaking department brought along his department's 4 legged adjunct professor and therapy dog.
1st Award: Jerry Spady for both his art furniture pieces
"Aquarium"
"Chest of Drawers"
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2nd Award: April Flanders
"Fast Growing"
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3rd Award: Amanda Ladymon
"Rhizomorphious:Cycles and Entrails 1 & 2"
Honorable Mention: Jorge Gomez del Campo
"A Machine About Love, Death, and Dancing"
"How High?"
Fast Frames Award: Randy Arnold
"Harmonic Convergence"
OTHER WORK IN EXHIBIT: RANDOMLY SELECTED
Untitled 14 From “Cerebral Ashe” series by Jonathan Bagby
"Vertigo" by Elizabeth A. Porter
"Looking Up" by Randy L. Purcell
"Mensap Stier" by Beauvais Lyons
"Lines:Laces" by Robmat Butler
"Fetish" by David Marquez
"And the Rocks Danced" by Viki Quinn
detail of "Food for the Thinker" by Deborah Pappas
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EXHIBIT VIEWS
Judy Gaston's woven art garments, Coral Grace Turner's witty pillows, Gerry Moll's environmental wall scupture.
April Flander's two large prints next to Laura Chenicek's hinged door paintings.
Bain Butcher's "Yellow # 3" to the left, Sheila H. Rauen's quilt "Dogwood Spa", Lauren Karnitz's "Rhapsody #2, and Lorri Y. Kelly's "Poseidon".
David Marquez's two bronz and steel sculptures in a front window. Perpetual street construction outside.
Jairo Prado's painting "Waiting", and 2 found object sculptures by Brandon Woods on the pedestals.
Paintings by Ken Withers, Susan Doubleday, Susan Milk Colclough, Eleanor Aldrich, and Randy Purcell.
Terry Jordan and Deborah Pappas.
A view from Jairo Prado in the front to April Flander's "Fast Growing" cut paper and powdered graphite installation towards the back.
Photography by Nicolas Bell, Jonathan Bagby, Steve Zigler.
April Flanders, Chris McAdoo
Photography by Bob Conliffe, Faye Burke, and Ken Van Dyne.
Jerry Spady's "Chest of Drawers"
Jorge Gomez del Campo, and two huge photographs of Mt. LeConte in frames sculpted from wood and materials from the site by Robert Batey.
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Burchett on the micophone on one side, ACA director Liza Zenni on the other side.
David Butler, Director of the Knoxville Museum of Art (left) talks with Tim and Allison Burchett.
Brigid Oesterling, Jorge's partner, is playing with the Machine in the background.
Liza Zenni (left) and Knoxville Symphony conductor Lucas Richman. I don't know a lot of the influential people outside of the arts community that come to these events, but I'm improving.
Cindy Spangler (retired from UTK's Ewing Gallery) left, Adam Alfrey, Beauvais Lyons, right.
Brigid Oesterling again (tallest) talks with bartender, KMA guild member Susan Farris to the right (back to camera).
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List of Participating Artists
Eleanor Aldrich.................................. Knoxville
Randy L. Arnold................................ Knoxville
Jonathan Bagby................................. Knoxville
Robert Batey..................................... Sevierville
Nicholas Bell....................................... Knoxville
Faye Burke......................................... Gatlinburg
Bain Butcher .......................................Knoxville
Robmat Butler................................... Knoxville
Laura Chenicek................................... Nashville
Susan Milk Colclough......................... Walland
Jorge Gomez del Campo.................... Knoxville
Bob Conliffe.......................................... Knoxville
Susan Doubleday................................. Chattanooga
Tiffany Dyer......................................... Hendersonville
April Flanders...................................... Boone, NC
Judy Gaston......................................... Knoxville
Terry Jordan....................................... Clarksville
Lauren Karnitz.................................... Knoxville
Lorri Y. Kelly....................................... Chattanooga
Amanda Ladyman.............................. Columbia, SC
Beauvais Lyons................................... Knoxville
David Marquez................................... Bowling Green, KY
Chris McAdoo..................................... Knoxville
Gerry Moll.......................................... Knoxville
Deborah Pappas................................. Oak Ridge
Elizabeth A. Porter............................ Knoxville
Jairo Prado......................................... Nashville
Randy L. Purcell................................ Mt. Juliet
Viki Quinn.......................................... Roanoke, VA
Sheila H. Rauen................................. Knoxville
Maya Simonson................................. Morristown
Jerry Spady....................................... Oak Ridge
Lynnda Tenpenny............................ Knoxville
Coral Grace Turner.......................... Knoxville
Ken Van Dyne................................... Norris
Ken Withers...................................... Shepherdsville, KY
Lisa Ruttan Wolff............................. Norris
Brandon Woods................................ Mufreesboro
Steve Zigler....................................... Knoxville
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ABOUT OUR 2010 JUROR
Ruth Grover has served as Director and Curator of the Cress Gallery of Art and its Permanent Collection, The University of Tennessee / Chattanooga since 1999 and also as Director and Curator of the UTC John and Diane Marek Visiting Artists Series since 2006. Concentrating on contemporary art and trends, Grover curates 4 to 6 exhibitions per year of work in all media by artists of national and international reputation in the Cress, along with 3 to 5 visiting artist venues associated with those exhibitions. Exhibitions Grover has curated in the Cress have garnered three reviews in national / international arts publications over the past year. At UTC, Grover also serves in a number of ways from working with students to educate and mount exhibitions to serving as a resource for the campus and community. Grover juried the Tennessee Artists and Craftsmen Association Exhibition at St. Andrews, TN, in 2003, and the Creative Arts Guild Festival, Dalton, GA, in 2005. In 2007 she curated the Association of Visual Arts / UNUM “Arts in the Workplace” corporate exhibition featuring 70 works by 35 Chattanooga area artists. in 2008-2009 Grover served as juror of the Four Bridges Art Festival, a national juried venue held each year in Chattanooga, TN. Grover holds a BA Psychology from Ohio University, an M.Ed from the University of Cincinnati, and a BFA Painting from the University of Tennessee/Chattanooga. She maintained a studio practice in painting and photography from 1981 to 1996, and taught foundation studio and art history courses at UTC from 1987-1999. As a curator, Grover is currently a member of the American Association of Museums and the Association of College and University Museums and Galleries.
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Metro Pulse review by Jean Hess
(Metro Pulse somehow missed getting this on their web site-Thanks to Jean for supplying the original unedited file)
2010 Dogwood Regional Juried Exhibit
by Jean Hess
Knoxville celebrates the annual Dogwood Arts Festival with multiple shows that reflect shared interests here in our Mountain South. For example, many exhibiting artists look to the natural world for inspiration. Their work exemplifies our love of animals, gardening, and the out-of-doors. Additionally, artists embrace both art and craft elements of visual creativity, blurring and even crossing the lines arbitrarily drawn between what are actually two qualitative elements of creative excellence. Generations of regional artists have built a strong creative tradition. Those living here today add to that foundation by continually testing non-traditional approaches and materials.
One show, the juried Regional Fine Art Exhibition, surpasses itself every year. That is, the exhibition achieves added depth as experimental paintings, sculptures, prints and installations find a place among more traditional or comfortable works. This has occurred incrementally, and that is most likely why much of what is exhibited still addresses familiar themes of nature and artistic excellence while also embracing the new. This year's First Award winner, "Aquarium," by Jerry Spady, is a surprising and technically superb work in wood that is furniture, sculpture and installation-in-miniature. An airy cabinet on spindly legs contains delicate plants and tiny sea creatures, all carved of wood. The interior is lit so that everything casts interesting shadows. Suspended underneath the cabinet, two translucent hemi-spherical forms, with myriad tentacles of wood hanging from beneath each one, look like jellyfish poised to dart away. There is a light inside each of these domed creatures that shines through tiny holes like stars. Spady's use of electrical lighting and translucent materials, combined with wood, builds upon honored traditions while also moving forward.
Works exploring natural imagery include Lauren Karnitz' painting "Rhapsody #2;" slender, vertical green leaves float in a bright ether of pale blue. The leaves are painterly to the point of appearing slathered while in fact highly controlled. Amanda Ladymon's installation "Rhizomorphious: Cycles and Entrails" includes a riveting, multi-paneled painting, free-standing like an Oriental screen, on which myriad swirling biomorphic forms are partly drawn, partly painted in thin washes. In front of the painting a loosely-attached free-form sculpture of what appear to be entrails hangs from the ceiling, then tumbles and trails across the floor. Ladymon's audacious use of materials ranging from fiberglass and knit fabric to latex make this sculpture appear to pulsate. In April Flanders' wall sculpture "Fast Growing" highly naturalistic trailing ivy, made of cut and stained paper, fills a wall with downward-tumbling vines. The vines hover above a spray-painted "garden" of pale leaf silhouettes at the baseboard line. This highly labor-intensive work is most likely ephemeral; it may not survive beyond this show. Flanders' nod to new trends favoring provisionality and "everyday" materials is nonetheless a traditional naturalistic subject rendered with exactitude.
Many works exemplify the contemporary ends of highly traditional means, and are both artful and well-crafted. Judi Gaston weaves recycled materials like old dress patterns, computer paper and plastic shopping bags to create carefully-constructed garments. Her "Recycle: A Pattern for Life" confronts environmental issues head-on with a recycle symbol on the chest . Coral Grace Turner's impeccably-crafted needlepoint pillow "Discard of Credit Cards" shows a credit card being cut with scissors. Robmat Butler's series "Lines and Laces" combines simple wooden shadow boxes with translucent panes of resin. Delicate, cryptic drawings embedded in the resin, some schematic, others organic, are done in black ink. Beauvais Lyons' impeccable lithographs depict imaginary creatures like the "Eend Muskusrat." He conjures these faux animals to spoof systems of scientific classification, museums and other institutions of authority. He delights us by toying with tradition.
2010 Dogwood Regional Fine Arts ExhibitRebori Building 128 Gay StreetApril 2-30Gallery Hours: Wed. - Sat 10 AM - 5 PM, Sun. the 11th 12-5 p.m. Free
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The Dogwood Regional Fine Arts Exhibit is possible due to the generous support of Jo and Jimmy Mason, ORNL Federal Credit Union, Crown Plaza Hotel, and The Knoxville Museum of Art.
I'd also like to thank the wall building and dismantling team of the 3 BOB's: Robmat Butler, Roberto Sanabria, Robert Lydick, plus Randy Arnold. Also, volunteer gallery sitters Coral Grace Turner, Judy Gaston, Randy Arnold, Gerry Moll, Bob and Donna Conliffe, Ken Van Dyne, Lauren Karnitz, and of course my boss Dogwood Director of Development Lynda Evans who filled in too many cracks to count.
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Denise Stewart-Sanabria
Chairperson: Dogwood Regional Fine Art Exhibit
