The University of Alabama Department of Art and Art History is pleased to present two Bachelor of Fine Arts exhibitions, November 19-29, 2018. Youth Expressions by Caroline Japal, and Sensory Notions by Candace von Hoffman, will be held in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery. The public is invited to a reception for the artists in the gallery Tuesday, Nov. 20, from 4:00 to 6:00 pm. In her exhibition, Youth Expressions, CAROLINE JAPAL focuses on portraits of young people and their experience of coming of age in Birmingham, a small Southern city, something that Japal realized had never been done before. "In researching this," she said, "I found only photo projects that focused on youth culture in larger cities and none in small cities like Birmingham, or in the South." Japal's photos of young people feel personal because the artist actively engages with her subjects while she takes pictures. "I meet with them in a public place, like Railroad Park or UAB campus, and we walk around talking while I photograph them." She says she catches "the in-between moments" when her subjects are open and unself-conscious. "I think viewers will be able to relate to them whether they know my photographic subjects or not." Birmingham native Caroline Japal is a creative director at Belladonna magazine, the first fashion magazine founded in Birmingham, Alabama. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Art Concept Magazine and owner of Caroline Japal Photography. Japal was recently featured in Freelancer Magazine: http://frlmag.com/meet-woman-on-the-rise-birmingham-based-photographer-caroline-japal/. She has exhibited her work in UA's 2018 Annual BFA Juried Exhibition and in the Loft Show in Birmingham, and TheMix Birmingham Showcase. Japal is the recipient of the Carol B. Merkle Endowed Scholarship in 2017 and the Windgate Charitable Foundation Endowed Studio Arts Scholarship in 2016. Her website is https://www.carolinejapal.com/. Throughout her college career, CANDACE VON HOFFMAN has experimented with the overlapping the media of painting and photography. The body of work in her exhibit, Sensory Notions, von Hoffman said, "is guided by the idea that our bodies are in constant conversation with our surroundings. I am curious about exploring the relationship between the body, the human sense, and the fragility of perception. What does it mean to inhabit the body and how do our bodies direct our perception of reality?" Alabama native Candace von Hoffman has exhibited her work in UA's 2018 Annual BFA Juried Exhibition at Harrison Galleries; in a four-woman show, Canorous, in 2018 and in the 2016 and 2017 Open Media exhibitions in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery. She is the recipient of the Farley Moody Galbraith Endowed Scholarship in 2018 and the Julie Peake Holaday Memorial Endowed Scholarship in 2017. Image credits: (top) Caroline Japal, Ana, 2018, photographic print, 30” H x 20” W. (bottom) Candace von Hoffman, Untitled Study 4/16, September 2018, multimedia collage, 4 x 4 inches. Both images courtesy of the artists. The Bachelor of Fine Arts degree is the professional degree for the artist; it is also the foundation for the masters program in studio art at UA. For more information about the BFA degree and our other degree programs in the Department of Art and Art History, go to http://art.ua.edu/academics/undergraduate-programs/babfa-in-studio-art/ or contact the department at (205) 348-5967. Woods Hall is a five-minute walk from the Campus Drive Parking Deck and Bus Hub on Hackberry Lane. Gold 1, Crimson, Blue and Bronze CrimsonRide buses stop between Garland Hall and Gorgas Library. Information about visitor parking is available here: http://bamaparking.ua.edu/visitor-information/. For more information contact Rachel Dobson, communications specialist, at (205) 348-1893 or rachel.dobson@ua.edu.
Johnny Goodwin
Gay Burke's former student Johnny Goodwin's work is included in the exhibition Butterfly Effect: Honoring the Legacy of Gay Burke, at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center in Tuscaloosa. Johnny Goodwin (MA 1999 photography; BA 1997, history and studio art) earned his MFA and Ph.D. in 2005 in studio art and photography from the University of Memphis. Below is his artist statement: Photography has been the means for me to create and give visual “proof” to an alternative reality. It has also been a way to preserve what becomes altered with time and memory. I feel my photographs are captured moments, giving emotion and life to subjects that are sometimes seen as abandoned places or inanimate objects. It is with the “magic” of photographic manipulation, both in the darkroom and with digital technology. The exhibition will run in conjunction with Gay Burke: The Mother of Alabama Art Photography, an exhibition of 40 works by Gay Burke in The Arts Council Gallery, Oct. 5-26. The University of Alabama Gallery is located at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center, 620 Greensboro Avenue, Tuscaloosa, AL. Hours are Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.-noon and 1 – 4 p.m. on weekdays and noon – 8 p.m. on the first Friday of the month. For more information about The University of Alabama’s programs in studio art and art history, go here: https://art.ua.edu/academics/.
Andy Meadows
Gay Burke's former student Andy Meadows' work is included in the exhibition Butterfly Effect: Honoring the Legacy of Gay Burke, at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center in Tuscaloosa. Meadows co-organized with ASCA Deputy Director Elliot Knight. In 2015, Andy Meadows (MFA 1995, photography) accepted a position at the Alabama State Department of Education in the Instructional Services division as the Arts Education Specialist for the state, a resource support person for all teachers in the state who teach theater, music, dance or visual art. He sits on the Board of Trustees for the Alabama School of Fine Arts and the boards of the Alabama Alliance for Arts Education and the Arts Education Leadership Team (a partnership between the Alabama State Department of Education and the Alabama State Council on the Arts). Meadows created the Art Photography Program at Booker T. Washington Magnet High School and was recruited in 2010 by Mountain Brook High School to run their Art Photography program. The exhibition will run in conjunction with Gay Burke: The Mother of Alabama Art Photography, an exhibition of 40 works by Gay Burke in The Arts Council Gallery, Oct. 5-26. The University of Alabama Gallery is located at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center, 620 Greensboro Avenue, Tuscaloosa, AL. Hours are Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.-noon and 1 – 4 p.m. on weekdays and noon – 8 p.m. on the first Friday of the month. For more information about The University of Alabama’s programs in studio art and art history, go here: https://art.ua.edu/academics/.
Acclaimed Photographer Memorialized in Exhibit
The Mother of Alabama Art Photography: Gay A. Burke Exhibition: October 5 – 26, 2018 Opening reception and reunion: October 5, 2018, 5:00-8:00 p.m. (First Friday) The Arts Council Gallery, Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center 620 Greensboro Avenue, Tuscaloosa, Alabama In many ways, Gay Burke is responsible for bringing art photography to Alabama and raising the profile of photography as an art form throughout the South. She is the “Mother of Alabama Art Photography.” –Wayne Sides, photographer and author Over four decades, photographer and professor of art Gay Burke developed a distinguished fine art photography program at The University of Alabama Department of Art and Art History, all the while creating her own photographic work. Out of this program came award-winning artists such as Miller Mobley, Janice Hathaway, Wayne Sides, Karen Graffeo, and many others. Burke’s innovative work has been exhibited in more than 80 national exhibitions including numerous solo exhibitions at venues such as the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; the University of California, Berkeley and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Burke studied under distinguished photographer and photomontage innovator Jerry Uelsmann at the University of Florida and worked with renowned documentary photographer Walker Evans. At UA, she was the first woman to achieve full professor status in the Department of Art and Art History. She died in May of 2017. This semi-retrospective exhibition showcases forty works by Gay Burke, some never shown before. Most of the photographs are multi-negative prints. To create them, Burke shot 35mm film photographs, developed the negatives in her darkroom, and then painstakingly combined two, three or four negative images in the darkroom to produce a new image. These photographs, with their often surreal juxtapositions of seemingly unrelated objects, are a result of careful and skillful manual manipulation, long before the days of "photoshopping." None have been digitally manipulated. Please join us on opening night, Friday October 5, 2018, for a celebration of Gay Burke and a reunion of her former students from 5:00-8:00 p.m. An exhibition of photos by some of her former students, Butterfly Effect: Honoring the Legacy of Gay Burke, will be held at the same time in The University of Alabama Gallery, also in the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center, sponsored by the Alabama State Council on the Arts. A one-time pop-up sale featuring hundreds of Gay Burke’s prints will immediately follow the opening reception, also in the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center. All proceeds from the sale of these photos will go to fund the annual Gay Burke Memorial Fellowship in Photographic Arts, administered by the Alabama State Council on the Arts. The Arts Council Gallery hours are 9 a.m.-noon and 1-4 p.m. on weekdays and noon-8 p.m. on First Fridays. The University of Alabama Gallery hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays and noon-8 p.m. on First Fridays. Galleries are closed on weekends. Admission is free. The Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center is located at 620 Greensboro Avenue in Downtown Tuscaloosa. For more information about the CAC, The Arts Council or Bama Theatre, patrons should LIKE the Facebook page “The Arts Council – Bama Theatre – Cultural Arts Center” and follow tuscarts on Twitter. Call 205-758-5195 or visit tuscarts.org for further information.
Photography Students of Gay Burke Honor Her Legacy
Butterfly Effect: Honoring the Legacy of Gay Burke October 5-26, 2018 Reception: Friday, October 5, 5–8 p.m. The exhibition Butterfly Effect: Honoring the Legacy of Gay Burke features the work of more than 20 artists who studied under Professor Gay Burke over the course of Burke's 42-year career teaching photography in the Department of Art and Art History at The University of Alabama. Burke passed away in 2017. An opening reception will be held on First Friday, October 5, 5:30-8:00 p.m. The opening will be a homecoming and reunion for Gay Burke’s students and colleagues. Former students Elliot Knight and Andy Meadows identified twelve former students of Gay Burke's spanning the years from 1973 until Gay’s retirement in 2015. Each artist was asked to invite at least two additional photographers to participate. The exhibition will feature work that the artists created during their college years learning from Gay, as well as work they created more recently. The exhibitors include Sarah Ann Austin, Barbara Lee Black, Wanrudee Buranakorn, Breanna Conley, Kathleen Fetters, Jenny Fine, Karen Graffeo, Johnny Goodwin, Ad Kanyalak, Elliot A. Knight, Jim Lockhart, Kristen Mance, Kathryn Joy Mayo, Andy Meadows, Sarah Cusimano Miles, Michael E. Palmer, Ben Rigsby, Laura Shill, Wayne Sides, Emily Thomas, Terrell Taylor and Jerri Wilson. The exhibition will run in conjunction with Gay Burke: The Mother of Alabama Art Photography, an exhibition of 40 works by Gay Burke in The Arts Council Gallery, Oct. 5-26. The University of Alabama Gallery is located at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center, 620 Greensboro Avenue, Tuscaloosa, AL. Hours are Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.-noon and 1 – 4 p.m. on weekdays and noon – 8 p.m. on the first Friday of the month. For more information about The University of Alabama’s programs in studio art and art history, go here: https://art.ua.edu/academics/.
Two Exhibitions In Memory of Professor Gay Burke
Over four decades, photographer and professor of art Gay Burke developed a distinguished art photography program in The University of Alabama’s Department of Art and Art History, all the while creating her own artwork. Burke died May 1, 2017. For the month of October, two exhibitions, of Burke's work and the work of her students, will be on display in the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center in downtown Tuscaloosa. A semi-retrospective exhibition, Gay Burke: The Mother of Alabama Art Photography, will be on display in The Arts Council Gallery. The Alabama State Council on the Arts is assisting with the curation and exhibition of Burke’s former students' works, Butterfly Effect, which will be held in The University of Alabama Gallery. An opening reception for both exhibitions will be held on First Friday, October 5, 5:30-8:00 p.m. The opening will be a homecoming and reunion for Gay Burke's students and colleagues. More details about both exhibitions will be forthcoming.
Photo Shoot Night at the Museum
Students in Associate Professor of Photography Christopher Jordan's intermediate and advanced photo classes (ART 318 and 418) have been staging production photographs around UA campus for the past several semesters. Below is an example of one that was produced in the Alabama Museum of Natural History in Smith Hall. The image is made in a “directorial mode,” similar to the style of contemporary photographer Gregory Crewdson, in which a fictional reality is established. In this image, a lone character resembling Indiana Jones "camps out" inside the Alabama Museum of Natural History. The “nighttime” lighting as well as the fact that an explorer sits in front of a fake fire inside a museum instead of out in the wild, lends a surreal atmosphere to the scene. Find out about the other "fictional reality" photo shoots students staged at the Gorgas House, on Woods Quad and at the ‘little round house’ (officially known as the Guard House, built in 1862).
UA Students Create Fictional Reality in Photo Course
Associate Professor of Photography Christopher Jordan reported on some intriguing photo projects his students have been working on this past school year. "Over the past several semesters," he said, "in my intermediate and advanced photo classes (ART 318 and 418), my students and I have been staging production photographs around campus. You might recall the images from the Gorgas House, on Woods Quad, at the Museum of Natural History and now this semester, the 'little round house' (officially known as the Guard House, built in 1862)." After they obtained permission to use the space, the photo shoot of the Guard House took place early evening on April 18, 2016. Professor Jordan said that the image is made in a “directorial mode,” similar to the style of contemporary photographer Gregory Crewdson, in which a fictional reality is established. "In this image, a solitary dancer occupies the space lit in a way to create a dreamlike atmosphere. In one of the images, a passerby takes a closer look at the unusual event unfolding. The photo production employed various lighting strategies to support the illusion, including shooting at dusk with lights hidden strategically inside the little round house, just outside the frame." The students were Faith Barringer, Sydney Black, Morgan Hufnagel and Pierson Scarborough. The model was Olivia Zimmerman. Here are some of the photographs of students working on the production and and then photos taken by the students. Click on the thumbnails for larger versions. If you'd like to read more about the history of the Civil War-era Guard House, read Robert O. Mellown's The University of Alabama - A Guide to the Campus and Its Architecture (2013) or read this blog post from our friends at Alabama Heritage magazine.
UA Alumna Cofounded Innovative Photography Business
Image Credits
Mary Stephenson Mills cofounded "one of America's most significant twentieth-century portrait photography businesses" with her husband, Olan Mills, in Tuscaloosa in 1932. Mary Mills lent creative and technical expertise to the business she and her husband started together and built into one of the most innovative portrait photography businesses in the US until the Mills' family sold the company in 2011. Mary Eula Stephenson (1905-1974) majored in art at The University of Alabama and graduated in 1927. One of her early post-graduation jobs was as a finisher in her hometown of Selma in the studio of Jesse B. Williams, who took over Edgar Cayce's portrait photography business. Mary Stephenson married Olan Mills in 1930 and they opened a studio in Selma. A couple of years later the couple moved to Tuscaloosa where they established Olan Mills Studios, which remained a family-owned company until 2011. Among their early clients was The University of Alabama. The Millses were awarded a contract to take student portraits for the 1933 Corolla, "which provided cash flow in the business's first year and allowed them to expand their business," according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama. "By 1935, Mary Mills, who was experienced in art and in hand-finishing photographs, had created a distinctive, easily recognizable portrait style for Olan Mills Studio. This new style, an 8x10 duotone portrait lightly touched up with oils, replaced the old 8x10 black and white prints. Duotone printing produced tonally rich images that needed only a quick touch of handwork to create a suggestion of color. Mary Mills's new strategy resulted in quicker production because less handwork was required than in older hand-coloring methods." -- more at Encyclopedia of Alabama Sources: Frances Osborn Robb, "Olan Mills Studio in Alabama," Encyclopedia of Alabama Frances Osborn Robb, Shot in Alabama: A History of Photography, 1839–1941, and a List of Photographers, UA Press, 2017