New York, NY, Nov-Dec. 2022. Image courtesy of the artist.
Artist Craig Drennen will present a public lecture on his art on Monday, March 4, 2024, at 4:00 p.m. in the Yellowhammer Room of Gorgas Library on UA campus. The public is invited to attend.
Craig Drennen is a painter based in Atlanta and a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow. In a recent solo exhibition at Atlanta Contemporary, Drennen’s ongoing Timon of Athens project (based on the play by William Shakespeare) used an array of media to expound on “what it means to create art in the context of, and based on, the worst work by the (arguably) best and most influential Western playwright.” Drennen told BOMB magazine, “I like starting my entire artistic process with something that culture produced but then abandoned—and I’m drawn to things that are both strong and weak simultaneously. Also, I’m curious about acting as it relates to art.”
Drennen’s recent solo exhibitions include Mistress Merchant at Freight & Volume, New York, N.Y.; Old Athenian & at Stove Works in Chattanooga, Tennessee; and First Acts at Atlanta Contemporary Art Center. He has been an artist in residence at Yaddo, MacDowell, the Triangle Arts Foundation, DNA Provincetown and Skowhegan. His work has been reviewed in Art in America, Artforum, and the New York Times. Drennen served as dean at the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine, for four years. He teaches at Georgia State University and manages THE END Project Space. Since 2008 he has organized his studio practice around Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens.
Craig Drennen’s lecture is part of the Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture Series, sponsored by the UA Department of Art and Art History. To see our past and future visiting artists and scholars, go here: https://art.ua.edu/resources/visiting-artists/.
To find out more about The University of Alabama’s programs in studio art and art history, visit our Degree Programs page.