| Exhibit Description: |
| Private Dialogue: Vanderbilt University Law School |
Artists' Reception October 26, 2006, 5-7pm
Vanderbilt University Law School presents an exhibition of artwork by six artists, three living in Nashville, and three with ties to the southeast. Curated by Zeitgeist gallery, the exhibition is entitled Private Dialogue. This is a show about the personal language that artists use to interpret and react to the world around them.
The idea that an art object exists and communicates independently of the maker is central to what Paul Behnke does as an artist. While he believes that the painter has a personal agenda, he acknowledges the spectator will always have a reaction to the work based on his or her experience as a human being, often subordinating the intention of the artist. The act of painting for him (using the language of color, shape, line, and texture) is a private dialogue between himself and the materials that he uses. As the artist puts it, it is “like friends telling secrets.”
Joseph Burwell’s drawings seek to combine subject matter that is expressive, intuitive, and poetic with sensibilities that are lavishly embellished and decorative; in other words, combining the personal with symbols and recognizable elements of the world at large.
The decorative elements he uses are influenced by his early architectural studies and interest in the mesmerizing colors and patterns of illuminated manuscripts. These expressive elements seek to form a language of symbols from more fluid and intangible thoughts. The two contrasting forces, when layered, create a specific mood, which is both seductive and evocative.
Isolation and interaction are common, recurring ideas in Alicia Henry’s work. The complexities and the contradictions surrounding familial relationships as well as cultural differences and how these variations affect individual and group responses to themes of Beauty, the Body, and Identity are central themes that are conveyed in distilled images and symbols. These images are arranged in grids and patterns and serve to convey a relationship of the individual to a larger more organized (or disorganized or disintegrating) whole.
Her current work explores these ideas, addressing the process through which groups (specifically female) navigate these issues.
Kelly Popoff-Punches’ paintings were all made in her first year of motherhood. The works were all completed during her naps and in between diaper changes. The imagery was intuitive but totally influenced by her days’ work of being a mom. “The thoughts of a mother are the force behind all of the work . . . the weight of the enormous responsibility of protector, nurturer, teacher, and the mixed feelings of joy and self-doubt. My mind is filled with swaddles of salty tears and poopy diapers of a milky-breathed, sleepy-headed, thumb-sucking baby.”
Terry Thacker’s paintings allude to landscapes in which specific patterning, color, and texture seek to pinpoint particular elements or sensations within a larger context. The artist sees these specified areas as subsets or parts to a whole that inform the view of a larger, more grandiose scheme. He sees his work arranged in grids and geometric patterns functioning as an installation and also as individual panels.
Once again, this is an attempt to formulate a personal language, one derived from the history of western art as much as personal taste and affinities. Terry has consistently served as a mentor for artists in Nashville area through his role as a university professor and as an active member of Nashville’s vibrant independent artist community.
Faded signs, murals, and censored graffiti act to break up the monotonous American cityscape have become a primary source material that for Brady Haston’s paintings. These sometimes accidental and unplanned forms provide a dynamic background for the more permanent industrial parts and residential fixtures he encountered on a daily basis |
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