October 24, 2024 @ Slocumb Galleries
"Prey/Tell," an exhibit of art byMelissa Vandenberg, is on exhibit at East Tennessee State University's Slocumb Galleries. An artis's talk and reception is held Oct. 24 from 5-7 p.m. Commissioner Jenny Brock and ETSU President Dr. Brian Noland are guests of honor.
"Prey/Tell" spans roughly a decade of work, pulled together with full acknowledgment of an upcoming election. The title, a painful play on words, earnestly requests our feedback and attention.
"Prey/Tell" is born of both fury and bewilderment by what is worshiped and elevated through acts of commemoration. As a self-professed civil species, we are rife with rage and hypocrisy. Our hypothetical exceptionalism – a notion championed by the West, the whiteand the masculine – undermines our human(e) potential. What are morals, faithand veneration without empathy, loveand gentleness? "Prey/Tell" attempts to make sense of an anxious and busted world through its materiality and iconographies (icons) of reverence.
Our morals are distilled in the monuments we erect. The ways in which we offer tribute to the fallen expose profound shortcomings in our societal fabric. Here, "fallen" refers to a spectrum of loss—children lost to violence, lives lost to war, bodies deprived of autonomy, and freedoms absent through corporal and cultural colonization.
This collection of soft monuments and burn drawings explore the fragilities and fears that govern all of us—fear of death, fear of being forgotten, and perhaps the most common, fear of losing power.
melissavandenberg.com
Born and educated in Detroit, Vandenberg is a multidisciplinary artist, educatorand curator living in Eastern Kentucky. Her work surveys a devolving sociopolitical landscape using myths surrounding patriotism, pride, and partisanship as points of departure. Narrowing world views and false perceptions of a "homeland" prompts creative projects that respond to bodies, prejudice, violence, and unrest. The physical works employ commonplace media—matches, fabric, handkerchiefs, flags, hangers, vases, and other familiar and domicile materials. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States, and abroad in Canada, Germany, Luxembourg, Iceland and Sweden. Melissa received a BFA in 1999 from Center for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan and a MFA in 2005 from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. She has been the recipient of numerous grants including a Kentucky Foundation for Women Artist Enrichment Grant, the Al Smith Fellowship, Great Meadows Foundation Travel Grant, and was shortlisted for the Luxembourg Art Prize in 2016.
Her work is in the collections of the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama, Gummifabriken in Värnamo, Sweden, 21c Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, and the Rockwell Museum in Corning, NewYork.
She is an Associate Professor of Art at Eastern Kentucky University and Director of the EKU Giles Gallery. She is represented by Maus Contemporary in Birmingham, Alabama.
Category: Exhibits