Painting by Vincent Drake
June 2–30, 2023 @ Emporium Center for Arts & Culture
The Arts & Culture Alliance presents five new exhibitions at the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville from June 2-30. A free gathering with the artists takes place Friday, June 2, from 5-9 p.m.and features live music inside the Emporium by Ben McLaughlin. Most of the works arefor sale and may be purchased through the close of the exhibition by visiting in person or the online shop atknoxalliance.store.
Chaos & Void by Vincent Drake and Greg Schweigerin the upper gallery
Chaos & Voidincludes new paintings by Vincent Drake and new photography by Greg Schweiger.
Drake was born in 1976 in Udon Thani, Thailand, to a Thai mother and American father and spent his formative years in a working-class neighborhood in southeast Los Angeles. He attended the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and the San Francisco Art Institute where he studied fine art painting. Drake's art can be seen as an exploration of society's struggle with the individual and human nature. His work has been exhibited throughout the U.S. and Canada. He resides in Knoxville.
"I'm inspired by the absurdity of modern American society: the irrational ideals we're convinced to accept, the relentless marketing and propaganda, the tribalism, disgust, perverted romanticism and violence that has become characteristic of us. In my art I'm unconcerned with beauty or idealization. I'm interested in investigating our culture's influence on our identities and the confusion, panic, and suffering that results. My subjects are people: sometimes we as individuals, sometimes us as a group. They are part mechanical construction, part hallucination; both comical and uncomfortable; suffering, confused, and trapped by their emptiness and proselytized ambitions," he says.
vincentdrake.com
Instagram: @artistvincentdrake
Schweiger was raised the youngest of five siblings on a small farm in eastern Kansas. After attending Northland College on the south shore of Lake Superior, he landed in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the summer of 1999. Photography has always been a natural pastime to capture his love of the outdoors. It also has been a creative outlet of his through a series of graphic design and IT related work. Recently he has expanded his photography and creativity in the direction of abstract expressionism.
"At its simplest, photography is the recording of light and shadow at a single point in time. The moments we choose to capture and the way they are presented allow us to express our relationships with the world. In my abstract work, I explore photography as a tool that does not document the external world, but rather expresses something more essential. I explore color, form, motion and void to form unique patterns, landscapes, or spaces. Using a handheld light, I manipulate the reflective and refractive properties of glass objects, paper, and other materials to capture abstract colors, shapes and shadows along with motion and defects. This is done through multiple exposures in-camera, meaning the image processing happens within the digital camera itself. I only use computer imaging software to prepare files for print, not in the creative process. By using the essential aspects of light, shadow and motion, I remove the external world as my subject and explore new photographic frontiers. My hope is to inspire the viewer into thought and discovery." he says.
gschweigerphoto.art
Instagram: @gschweiger
Barbara Bolton Cornett: Arboretum Obscura & Emily Greenquist: The Hardin Valley Projectin the lower gallery
"Arboretum Obscuracame about over the course of several years and miles of hikes throughout a variety of locations in the Appalachian Mountains. Trees that grew in seemingly impossible terrains, trees that had grown incredibly haphazardly, trees that seemed to overcome extreme disfiguration and mutation, they all intrigued me. As the years went by it became a type of game to see just how many strange and unique trees I could find during a hike. Documenting these treasures through photography began quite naturally. Over time, it evolved into this project of intriguing images from the many interesting trees that I have discovered. Sometimes, however, my imagination runs a little wild. What do you see in the trees?," says Cornett
Barbara Bolton Cornett, originally from London, Kentucky, resides in Knoxville with her husband, corgi, and two cats. Being a native of the Appalachian Mountain Region, she has a love of nature, wildlife, and the great outdoors. She is also an avid traveler and loves exploring the world and its many fascinating places. A large part of her photographic inspiration comes from her travels and time spent in nature, and documenting her journeys and explorations through her photography is something she truly enjoys. Her photographic journey was initially inspired by her beloved aunt who had taught her as a child to manually operate a film camera. As a child she would go around capturing images of blossoming redbud trees, blooming flowers, and the like. Many years went by before her inspiration was reignited when her daughter entered the world of competitive cheerleading. Capturing the best images possible with challenging setting and lighting circumstances became her own personal competition. A handful of years later after relocating to Knoxville, her husband and daughter bought her a new Nikon DSLR camera for her birthday. Barbara registered for and completed several photography classes in the UT Non-Credit Program and earned her Photography Certificate in 2021.
contemplativevisionsphotography.com
The Hardin Valley Projectis a new exhibition of photographs showing the development of Hardin Valley over the last three years, captured on 35mm black and white film. Emily Greenquist received her BFA in Photography from Brigham Young University — Idaho in 2011. She has lived and photographed all over the country and has been settled in Knoxville since 2019. She is a full-time mother to three girls.
"I have not lived here long, but even in my short four years living in Hardin Valley, I have seen a lot of change. I remember running to the store in the middle of lockdown and noticing one of the empty farmhouses had completely disappeared. I was astonished. It was beautiful. Why was it torn down? But I knew; we all know. The land it sits on is more valuable than the house. All that was left was yellow straw covering naked earth where a house sat for 100 years. Also in the frame, a “turn only” arrow in the road suggests the valley is going in a different direction.
"Since 2019, Knox County has gained more than 18,000 people, and there is westward movement within the county, so Hardin Valley has exploded. As a photographer, I felt the call to document these old houses before they were erased and replaced with subdivisions. I then took it a step further and documented the change itself, sometimes revisiting the same locations several times. I started with the still-standing empty farmhouses, then captured the farmland that was cleared, hills being excavated, subdivisions being built up, and property being posted for sale. As I photographed this project, I often thought about the emotional balancing act between the sadness of change and the need for development," says Greenquist.
Instagram @emilyldgreenquist
Diana Ferguson: Behold the Nightin the display case
Diana Ferguson, also known as DiFergi, is an internationally recognized and awarded visual artist. She graduated from college with a degree in art at the age of 40 and has been creating art ever since. She taught art for eight years in the public school system before going full time as a studio artist. She has shown on multiple continents, has had her work published in national publicationsand is currently an active advocate for the arts in East Tennessee. Primarily a painter using acrylics, she sometimes is also drawn to collage and mixed mediums. Boundaries are discouraged in her work, and reality has no prominence. Her work seeks to entertain, question and create its own narratives.
"Faces, thoughts, narratives and emotion are what talkto me. I want a story or a feeling to cover my canvas. Power and spirit, color and texture, visual energy and magical wonder are all interwoven into my paintings. Reality has very little to do with the intention of my final image," she says.
www.difergi.com
Instagram @difergiart
Summer Small: Daughter Landon the North wall
Daughter Landis an experiment in chaos and control: Summer Small’s acrylic and oil paintings are a double exposure forged from a deep well of folklore and traditional craft juxtaposed against her experience of growing up as daughter of modern Appalachia. She depicts the strange as it is familiar, and the familiar as it is mysterious and ephemeral.
Small is a self-taught visual artist who has spent her life exploring and evolving her emotional and aesthetic vision and developing the technical skills to execute that vision in diverse media, always inspired by her upbringing and community in Southern Appalachia. She is a founding participant in the Dogwood Arts Chalk Walk, where she has received numerous First Place and Grand Prize awards over the past 15 years. She has pursued a series of apprenticeships in a variety of media, and after high school, she served as the gallery manager for Pretentious Glass Co.
Early in 2021, Small began her career as a freelance artist and muralist. She sells her original work and fine art prints at juried markets across the Southeast and has executed numerous large-scale public art projects for community organizations and commercial clients. She works closely with Dogwood Arts on live mural painting and chalk art projects. Her work can be found in numerous local and regional publications, including The Scout Guide Knoxville. In February of 2023, she held her first solo exhibition,Highway Flowers, at RED Gallery in Knoxville. In the near future, Small has plans for several large public art projects, a residency at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, and many regional art markets.
Instagram @SummerSmallStudio
Deb Mazz Cikovic: Our Earth in Colorin the Atrium
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Deb Mazz Cikovic has been an artist and creator of original concepts in art since the late 1970s. She is currently best known for paintings in oils, inkand acrylic pouring as well as one-of-a-kind epoxy work. She uses a multitude of techniques and materials to create paintings and epoxy pieces which hold different meanings for each individual’s mind’s eye. She has shown original works at Van Der Plas Gallery in New York City as well as with Virtual Artists in London. Most recently, her works have been displayed at the Vivant Gallery in Reno, Nevada.
"Creating art is something I do every day. I get inspiration from music, photography, nature, and anything that surrounds me," Cikovic says.
ybcreativesart.com
Instagram @ybcreatives
The exhibitions are on display at the Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, in downtown Knoxville. The Emporium is open to the public Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Formore information, seewww.knoxalliance.com or call (865) 523-7543.
Category: Exhibits