Tuscaloosa. — The University of Alabama’s Department of Art and Art History is proud to present the master of arts thesis exhibition of Katie Adams, titled Space Between the Ears. The exhibition will be held March 21-29, 2019, at Harrison Galleries, in downtown Tuscaloosa. A reception for the artist will be held Friday, March 22 from 5:00-7:00 p.m. in the gallery. Adams designs and builds sculptures that visually express the effects of neurological disorders on those afflicted as well as the people around them, both in form and through the media in which she works. “My sculptures examine the complications of neurological disorders. Each piece builds a perspective for viewers to experience simultaneously the breakdown of neurological systems as well as the disruption of function and communication.” She wants the experience of viewing her sculpture to bring a realization to the viewer that, as she says, “perspective can be distorted without materially changing objects.” Adams works with metal, glass, ceramics and photography for the work in this exhibition. She explains, "Each brain model is different: with each disease the portions of the brain affected are either missing or made of glass instead of metal.” Adams hopes that by bridging the gap between art and medicine through her work, she will help people understand what is happening physically and mentally with neurological diseases. Katie Adams is a graduate student in sculpture. Adams received the BA from Western Kentucky University in art with a concentration in sculpture. Her work has been included in numerous juried and group exhibitions including Height x Width x Depth (HWD) in Kettering, Ohio; 51st Annual National Drawing and Small Sculpture Show, Corpus Christi, Texas, and 24th Annual Jack Lunt Memorial Juried Art Exhibition, Bowling Green, Ky. She demonstrated at the 2016 Sculpture Objects Functional Art and Design Convention (SOFA) in Chicago. Her work consists mostly of metal, wood and glass components. Adams says that she searches to understand and combine nature’s physical elements and systems with emotional connections. Image credit: Katie Adams, Brain, versatile plastic, 10 x 10 x 12 inches. Image courtesy of the artist. A thesis exhibition is one of the requirements for the successful completion of the Master of Arts program in the UA Department of Art and Art History. For more information about The University of Alabama’s Department of Art and Art History degree programs, visit our website: https://art.ua.edu/academics/. Harrison Galleries, LLC, is located at 2315 University Boulevard in downtown Tuscaloosa. The hours of the UA Gallery are Monday through Friday, 12:00 noon to 5:00 p.m., and First Fridays of the month, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. For more information call (205) 464-0054 or visit the website: http://www.firstfridaytuscaloosa.com/art-galleries/harrison-galleries-llc.
Iranian Artist Explores Her Cultural Identity Through Ceramic Art
Tuscaloosa. — The University of Alabama's Department of Art and Art History is proud to present the master of arts thesis exhibition of Nasrin Iravani, titled, “I’m a Woman Here Standing in the Mist.” The exhibition will be held April 3-30, 2019, at The University of Alabama Gallery in the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center, in downtown Tuscaloosa. A First Friday reception will be held Friday, April 5 from 5:00-8:00 p.m. in the gallery. Nasrin Iravani is a graduate student in ceramics and serves as a graduate teaching assistant in ceramics. Iravani received the MA in Handicrafts (ceramics) from Tehran University of Art. Her work is inspired by Persian art and she is particularly interested in figurative forms. She presents a critical view of ethical, social and cultural issues in her art work and is currently working on a collection of pieces titled Femininity, which refers to women’s rights and concerns. She writes, “The history and culture of Iran, my home country, gives me a sense of identity, tranquility, and confidence. I use symbols and signs of traditional Iranian art to showcase some of that history and culture. In my work, I explore feminine narratives in aesthetics, politics, history and personal experiences, and I use the concept of art as a tool to address contemporary women’s rights and concerns.” Iravani uses elements such as asymmetry, color contrast and the simultaneous presentation of the inside and the outside of some of her pieces to convey her own conflicts with Iran's traditional ways, especially regarding women. The title of her exhibition is taken from a poem, written by her husband the Iranian poet Saeid Ranjbar, which she feels expresses her relationship to the culture she loves but struggles with. “While incorporating signs of traditional and contemporary art, I strive to reflect the view that the relationship between tradition and modernity needs to be continuously reconsidered.” Nasrin Iravani's selected international, national and juried exhibitions include L’artigiano in Fiera 2016, Milan; Fitur 2016, Feria de Madrid, Spain; International Handicraft Exhibition; Tehran; 46th International Art Show, Brownsville Museum of Fine Art (Texas); The Millennial Show (juried), TEJAS Gallery, Dayton, OH; Clay: A Southern Census (juried), New Orleans; 33rd Annual Alabama Clay Conference, Montgomery, AL; The Ritual Table: A Place of Memory, A State of Mind, Corning, NY; and Vitreous (juried), Clay Center of New Orleans. Image credit: Nasrin Iravani, Aspire, 2019, 30 x 25 x 20 cm., porcelain. Image courtesy of the artist. A thesis exhibition is one of the requirements for the successful completion of the Master of Arts program in the UA Department of Art and Art History. For more information about The University of Alabama's Department of Art and Art History degree programs, visit our website. The Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center is located at 620 Greensboro Avenue in downtown Tuscaloosa. The DWCAC is the home of The University of Alabama Gallery and The Arts Council Gallery. The hours of the UA Gallery are Monday through Friday, 9 am to 5 pm, and First Fridays of the month, 12 noon to 8 pm. For more information call (205) 342-2060 or visit the website: https://uagallery.as.ua.edu/.
Nigerian Artist Creates a Spontaneous Tapestry of Painting in Exhibit
Tuscaloosa. — The University of Alabama Department of Art and Art History is pleased to present "The Wor(l)d Is An Idea…," the master of arts exhibition of Jude Anogwih, April 4-11, 2019, in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery on UA campus. The public is invited to a reception for the artist Monday, April 8, 5-8 pm. Anogwih's exhibition is a compound visual reflection of his travels and encounters within and beyond his home city of Lagos, Nigeria, the "sociocultural nerve point for the country." Anogwih describes this body of work, primarily in mixed media, as an "imprint of drawings, paintings and installation that retraces my presences (physical, mental, and imagined…) in various spaces, places, countries and entities that I encountered and longed to be. They embody memories, perceptions/assumptions and history that I retrace, reconstruct, draw, paint, paste…into dense, abundant layers of persistent marks that build up with time. These fragments of my memories and encounters clutter like a spontaneous tapestry to tell my story." Jude Anogwih is a graduate teaching assistant in drawing and painting.He received the MA in art history from the University of Lagos, Nigeria and a Post Graduate Diploma in Education from Federal University of Technology Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria. He received the BA with honors from the University of Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria, in Creative Arts. Anogwih’s work has been shown internationally in many exhibitions including Videonale (Lagos, Nigeria); Biennale Jogja XII (Yogyakarta, Indonesia); “Shifting Africa,” Mediation Biennale (Poznan, Poland); Suspension of Disbelief, Brundyn+ (Cape Town South Africa); Analogue Eye-Video Art Africa, National Arts Festival (Grahamstown, South Africa); Jardim Canadá Centro de Arte (Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil); 5th International Festival of Video Art, FIVAC 2013 (Camagüey, Cuba); Imagined Communities, Golden Thread Gallery (Northern Ireland). He was selected as a Goethe-Institut Moving Africa Participant at Salon Urbain de Douala and he won a Goethe-Institut Fellowship to dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, Germany, among other awards. He is a founding member and co-coordinator of Video Art Network Lagos. For more information about the UA Department of Art and Art History and its programs, visit this link: https://art.ua.edu/academics/or contact the department at (205) 348-5967. Funding support for the Sella-Granata Art Gallery comes from the Department of Art and Art History and the College of Arts and Sciences. Admission to the gallery is always free. Hours are Monday through Wednesday 9:00 a.m.- 5:00 p.m., Thursday 9 a.m.-8 p.m., Friday 10 a.m.-2 p.m. The gallery is located at 109 Woods Hall in the heart of the UA campus on Woods Quad. Information about visitor parking is available here: http://bamaparking.ua.edu/visitor-information/. For more information, contact the gallery at (205) 348-2783 or go to https://art.ua.edu/gallery/sgg/.
Revisiting the Origins of Anxiety Through Art: An MFA Thesis Exhibition
Tuscaloosa. — The University of Alabama Department of Art and Art History is pleased to present Manifestations, the master of fine arts exhibition of John Klosterman IV, March 21-28, 2019, in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery. There will be a closing reception for the artist, Thursday, March 28, 5-8 p.m. John Klosterman is a native of Daphne, Alabama. Growing up, he developed a fondness for machines and the tinkering that came along with them. His life-long love of tinkering now takes on a two-dimensional form in the physical process of printmaking. Instead of the turn of a wrench, he notes, it is now the carving of a block with a gouge. Layers of each print, much like parts of a car, are assembled in a manner that creates a functioning vehicle for the message of each piece. In his current body of work for his final MFA thesis exhibition, Klosterman confronts and examines his mental health issues, specifically anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder, through imagery and the process of making art: "I use vultures and various birds of prey to depict the omnipresent oppressive feeling of my anxiety. They hover above my head and glare at me from the shadows as they wait for me to fail. I use family photographs and chemically transferred landscapes to hint at its possible origins. My appropriation of these captured moments allows me to revisit places or relationships that were a part of my upbringing. I print repetitive frame-by-frame stills and exhaustingly detailed diagrams over objects and landscapes. These transparent diagrams represent my struggle with obsessive compulsive thoughts." Klosterman received the BFA from the University of South Alabama in 2015, with a major in printmaking and a minor in interdisciplinary studies. In 2017, he presented a gallery talk about his art work and practice. For more information about the UA Department of Art and Art History and its programs, visit this link: https://art.ua.edu/academics/or contact the department at (205) 348-5967. Funding support for the Sella-Granata Art Gallery comes from the Department of Art and Art History and the College of Arts and Sciences. Admission to the gallery is always free. Hours are Monday through Wednesday 9:00 a.m.- 5:00 p.m., Thursday 9 a.m.-8 p.m., Friday 10 a.m.-2 p.m. The gallery is located at 109 Woods Hall in the heart of the UA campus on Woods Quad. Information about visitor parking is available here: http://bamaparking.ua.edu/visitor-information/. For more information, contact the gallery at (205) 348-2783 or visit: https://art.ua.edu/gallery/sgg/.
Artist Transforms Old Technology into ‘Endearing Memory’
Tuscaloosa. — The University of Alabama Department of Art and Art History is pleased to present Syndication, the master of fine arts exhibition of Amy Smoot, March 21-28, 2019, in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery, with a closing reception for the artist, Thursday, March 28, 5-8 p.m. In ceramic, graduate student Amy Smoot recontextualizes now-obsolete technology into what she terms “containers or capsules of memory.” These objects transport us, Smoot notes, “to what we think are simpler times. I transform them from a cold, hard plastic and an outdated commodity into an endearing memory coated in a film of nostalgia.” Amy Smoot has taught Figure Modeling and assists in Ceramics I, III and IV. Smoot received the BFA in ceramics from the University of West Georgia where she was a studio assistant in ceramics and a student research assistant. She was one of three artists selected for Air Air in 2017, an artist residency where artists make art on airplanes. In the spring of 2017, she gave a 19th-century ceramics presentation at historic Lyon Hall in Demopolis, Ala. and led a “Fifty Minute Heads” workshop at the 2017 Georgia High School Clay Symposium (at UWG). In 2016-2017, she received a UA Graduate Council Fellowship. She currently serves as President of Crimson Clay. For more information about the UA Department of Art and Art History and its programs, visit this link: https://art.ua.edu/academics/ or contact the department at (205) 348-5967. Funding support for the Sella-Granata Art Gallery comes from the Department of Art and Art History and the College of Arts and Sciences. Admission to the gallery is always free. Hours are Monday through Wednesday 9:00 a.m.- 5:00 p.m., Thursday 9 a.m.-8 p.m., Friday 10 a.m.-2 p.m. The gallery is located at 109 Woods Hall in the heart of the UA campus on Woods Quad. Information about visitor parking is available here: http://bamaparking.ua.edu/visitor-information/. For more information, contact the gallery at (205) 348-2783 or go to https://art.ua.edu/gallery/sgg/.
Artist Explores Patterns of Water in MA Exhibition
Tuscaloosa. — The University of Alabama Department of Art and Art History is pleased to present Waterways, the master of arts exhibition of Ulrike Franz, April 4-11, 2019, in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery on UA campus. The public is invited to a reception for the exhibition Monday, April 8, 5-8 p.m. Originally from Germany, Ulrike Franz is a papermaker, printmaker and painter. Franz said her art work is inspired by her surroundings and she has been overwhelmed by the diversity of the natural world since she has lived in Alabama. "During the past few years in Alabama, the observation of water has become more and more interesting to me," she said, "as Tuscaloosa is surrounded by many lakes, creeks and rivers. The moving water surface creates patterns that fascinate me." This exhibition features Franz's work in several series of prints and paintings on paper created in the past two years, as well as photo-based prints series of cyanotypes and screen prints that are mixed with watercolor paintings. Ulrike Franz has held solo and group exhibitions of her artwork in Germany, France, Hungary and the Czech Republic. She was artist-in-residence in Szolnok, Hungary; freelanced in graphic design, painting; taught art classes to adults and children; and has worked as a gallery assistant and collections manager. Franz received the MA in art history, archeology and anthropology at the University of Tübingen, and has taken courses in Book Arts at The University of Alabama. She has held a private glider pilot license since 1983. For more information about the UA Department of Art and Art History and its programs, visit this link: https://art.ua.edu/academics/ or contact the department at (205) 348-5967. Funding support for the Sella-Granata Art Gallery comes from the Department of Art and Art History and the College of Arts and Sciences. Admission to the gallery is always free. Hours are Monday through Wednesday 9:00 a.m.- 5:00 p.m., Thursday 9 a.m.-8 p.m., Friday 10 a.m.-2 p.m. The gallery is located at 109 Woods Hall in the heart of the UA campus on Woods Quad. Information about visitor parking is available here: http://bamaparking.ua.edu/visitor-information/. For more information, contact the gallery at (205) 348-2783 or go to https://art.ua.edu/gallery/sgg/.
Mexican-American Biologist Explores Identity Through Painting
Tuscaloosa. — The University of Alabama Department of Art and Art History is pleased to present The Immigrant Life, the master of arts exhibition of Juan López-Bautista, April 4-11, 2019, in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery on UA campus. The public is invited to a reception for the artist, Monday, April 8, 5-8 pm. Juan López-Bautista has interwoven issues of identity, contemporary political reality and the natural world into his art. He writes, My artwork explores the search for a Mexican-American self-identity. The journey that I undertook to become a visual artist includes the personal and social challenges that I face as an immigrant. I find resonance between my artwork and the divided political discourse of today. Organic forms are used in my mixed media paintings to signify the threads of the fabric of our society. The resulting matrices are metaphors for the strengths and gaps of the many layers that form our American culture. I envision my abstract paintings as human landscapes, where issues of race, separation, injustice, survival, resilience and pursuit of happiness, occupy the same pictorial space. López-Bautista has a PhD in plant biology from Louisiana State University and a MS in biology from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He has taught for a decade in UA’s department of biology. His scientific research focuses on the biodiversity, systematics and phylogenomics of marine and terrestrial algae. His most recent project, funded by the National Science Foundation, is the assembling of the tree of life for green and red algae. He teaches courses in the biology of algae, plant biology and advanced phycology. Before entering the MFA program in studio art, he took courses in painting at LSU and at UA. In 2018, he had a solo exhibition at the Ayers LRC Art Gallery in Anniston, Ala., and has exhibited work in the UA Graduate Student Exhibition in 2018 and 2017. He has shown his work at Highland Coffees Gallery in Baton Rouge, La., and the Charles Saucier Gallery in New Orleans, among others. For more information about the UA Department of Art and Art History and its programs, visit this link: https://art.ua.edu/academics/ or contact the department at (205) 348-5967. Funding support for the Sella-Granata Art Gallery comes from the Department of Art and Art History and the College of Arts and Sciences. Admission to the gallery is always free. Hours are Monday through Wednesday 9:00 a.m.- 5:00 p.m., Thursday 9 a.m.-8 p.m., Friday 10 a.m.-2 p.m. The gallery is located at 109 Woods Hall in the heart of the UA campus on Woods Quad. Information about visitor parking is available here: http://bamaparking.ua.edu/visitor-information/. For more information, contact the gallery at (205) 348-2783 or go to https://art.ua.edu/gallery/sgg/.
UA Ceramic Students Handmake 100 Bowls for Annual Fundraiser
Tuscaloosa. – Ceramics students at UA have a tradition that goes back more than a decade of donating handmade ceramic bowls to a local Presbyterian church's food pantry fundraiser. Grace Presbyterian Church will host its 11th annual Empty Bowls fundraiser, a program designed to raise awareness about hunger, on Friday, March 1, 2019, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in the church fellowship hall, 113 Hargrove Road in Tuscaloosa. For a suggested donation of $12, attendees can select a handmade bowl created by UA ceramics students and faculty, and will receive a meal of soup, bread, and water. The “meager meal” is intended to remind participants that food security eludes many of our West Alabama neighbors; the empty bowl shows that many go to bed hungry. Begun by ceramics professors in the late 1990s, for the past six years, Assistant Professor Matt Mitros has organized the bowl-making brigade. Mitros explains, "Each year we are approached by Grace Presbyterian to create 100 bowls. The ceramics area starts work in the fall and we usually deliver the bowls in February. The makers who contribute their work have a range of experience and expertise, from students in Introductory Ceramics to faculty." One hundred percent of the proceeds from the event will support Grace Presbyterian Church’s Fishes and Loaves Food Pantry. The Food Pantry distributes food that is purchased from the West Alabama Food Bank and every ten dollars raised via Empty Bowls translates to fifty-six pounds of purchased food. On average this important outreach program distributes two tons of food every month and serves approximately 700 persons. Professor Mitros said, "Knowing that their donated vessels will end up in homes throughout the area after the event and having the opportunity to serve the community by donating work which is used to raise money to help those in need is an important part of the experience for our students." Local businesses will be donating soups and bread for the lunch and entertainment this year will be provided by Tuscaloosa resident and Celtic musician, Jil Chambless. For more information about Grace Presbyterian and the Empty Bowls event, call (205) 758-1193 or visit www.gracetuscaloosa.org.
UA Art Historians to Host National Graduate Student Conference
The Department of Art and Art History is pleased to host the 24th Annual Graduate Student Symposium in Art History on March 1, 2019, in the Bryant Conference Center on UA campus. Dr. Catherine Zuromskis, associate professor of fine art at RIT, will present the keynote address at 4:15 p.m., titled, “Feeling History: Evidence, Affect, and the Visual Culture of the Kennedy Assassination.” The symposium, a shared production of the departments of art and art history at The University of Alabama and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, will take place this year at the Bryant Conference Center on UA’s campus. Students from colleges and universities around the country will participate in the conference, as graduate research presenters and in undergraduate research poster presentations. Along with the University of Alabama at Birmingham and UA, schools represented are Columbus State University (Columbus, Ga.), Florida State University (Tallahassee), Savannah College of Art and Design, University of Kentucky (Lexington), University of Missouri (Columbia), University of Montevallo (Montevallo, Ala.), University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, Minn.) and University of West Florida (Pensacola). This year’s symposium is generously supported by The Graduate School; Dr. Robert Olin, Dean, College of Arts & Sciences; Dr. Tricia McElroy, Associate Dean, College of Arts & Sciences; Blount Scholars Program; New College; Department of Art and Art History; College of Continuing Studies; Harrison Galleries, LLC; Department of Modern Languages & Classics; and the Department of American Studies, of The University of Alabama. About the symposium: The Annual Graduate Student Symposium in Art History, sponsored and shared by the departments of art and art history at The University of Alabama and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, alternates campuses each year. In addition to presentations from graduate students from multiple institutions, the symposium also features poster presentations from undergraduate researchers. The symposium was begun in 1995 by faculty on both campuses to bring their students together to hear and be heard by eminent scholars working in the field of art history. Renowned scholars such as Paul Barolsky in the field of Italian Renaissance art, Allison Kettering in the field of Dutch Baroque art, and young, up-and-coming scholars like Michael Yonan, Krista Thompson, and Graham Boettcher, now director of the Birmingham Museum of Art, have been keynote speakers. The Joint Program for the M.A. in Art History began in 1987 between The University of Alabama and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The Joint Program offered the first, and still the only, graduate degree in art history in the state of Alabama. For more information, contact: Dr. Lucy Curzon, lcurzon@ua.edu, (205) 348-6458.