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Four UA Alumni Selected for Wiregrass Biennial

Art works by UA art alumni Anne Herbert, Meredith Knight, Rachel Ann Wakefield and Tom Wegrzynowski have beenAnne Herbert (MFA 2013), "Cold Fires," 2018, 52x42 inches, acrylic and ink on muslin, selected for the B18 Wiregrass Biennial. selected for the B18: Wiregrass Biennial, whose exhibitors are among the “most talented and engaging contemporary artists living and working in the Southeast.”

The annual juried exhibition opened July 19 during the Wiregrass Museum’s Art After Hours reception and runs through September 29, 2018.

Anne Herbert (MFA 2013) begins her fourth year teaching in the visual arts department of the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham. Along with the B18, she has a solo exhibition at the Hoover Public Library in September and October, her work was chosen for Art of the South at Crosstown Arts in Memphis, TN, and she is part of the group exhibition, Unnatural Response: Contemporary Art by Claire Lewis Evans, Anne Herbert, Kelly Parvin, and Kelly Shannon, at Mississippi University for Women. Additionally, Herbert coordinated the UA Graduate Alumni Exhibition at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center in Tuscaloosa, which runs through Sept. 28. Her art website is http://anneherbertpaintings.com/home.html.

Meredith Knight (MFA 2014), “Meter,” earthenware, 12 x 20 x 20 inches, selected for the B18 Wiregrass Biennial.Meredith Knight (MFA 2014, BFA 2011) serves as coordinator for Birmingham Museum of Art’s studio programs in the BMA’s education department. Knight has taught art through the Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project, co-directed the Black Belt 100 Lenses program and taught art at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, as well as to middle and high school students. At the Birmingham Museum, Knight writes, “I get to teach classes and work with artists who share their passion for art with visitors. I balance working at BMA with maintaining my own active studio practice in my studio in Avondale. I feel lucky to be able to do both – my studio practice informs my work at BMA and my interactions with colleagues and students, and the great collection at the BMA inspires my studio practice.” Knight’s work is also included in the UA Graduate Alumni Exhibition in Tuscaloosa through September.

About her sculpture in B18, Knight writes, “Meter is a sculptural abstraction that explores the multifaceted nature of reality. The form references an architectural element moving and twisting through time, suggesting an ongoing search for equilibrium by articulating a stream of moments.”

Rachel Ann Wakefield (BFA 2014, sculpture and painting) works as a painter and graphic designer in Northport, Ala. Rachel Ann Wakefield, "See," 36x36 inches, oil on canvas, 2017, selected for the B18 Wiregrass Biennial.About her painting, See, which was selected for the B18, she says, “It is part of a conversation that I have been having through my work on ‘Southern Realism’ – a depiction of emotions and experiences. Often I represent this realism through the use of a figure emerged in a body of water. One thing that you learn in the South is that being in water is good for the soul. It’s something that we are born into this world of, and we gravitate towards when we need peace.”

Tom Wegrzynowski (MFA 2006) The Death of Caesar, 2017, Oil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches, selected for B18 Wiregrass Biennial.Tom Wegrzynowski (MFA 2006) works in his studio and teaches studio and art history courses at The University of Alabama. The piece that was selected for the B18 was The Death of Caesar, part of his Lucky series of paintings, which examines aspects of culture. Wegrzynowski has exhibited recently at Jonathan Ferrara Gallery in New Orleans, Contemporary Arts Center in Las Vegas and Transmission Gallery in Oakland, Calif. He has also presented solo shows at the Malone Gallery at Troy University (Troy, Ala.) and the Sarah Moody Gallery of Art in Tuscaloosa as well as two man shows at the Bagwell Center for Media and Art in Knoxville, Tenn. and the Meridian Museum of Art in Mississippi.

Jurors for the B18 Wiregrass Biennial were Elizabet Elliott, Curator of Programs at the Mobile Museum of Art, and Jackie Clay, Director of the Coleman Center for the Arts in York, Ala.

In addition to the B18, museum visitors will be able to see LETTERS etc., an exhibition by another UA art alumnus, Clayton Colvin (MFA 2005).

For more information about UA Department of Art and Art History programs, go here: https://art.ua.edu/academics/.