(Tuscaloosa, Ala.) UA professor of painting and department chair Jason Guynes has two paintings included in the exhibition, Negotiations: Portraits, open now at the Alabama State Council on the Arts’ Georgine Clarke Alabama Artists Gallery in Montgomery through December 29, 2022. Curator Amy Jenkins writes that the exhibition “highlights portraits, self-portraits and other ways of seeing ourselves and others across multiple media.” Other artists featured include Pinky Bass, Carolyn Sherer, Lauren Woods, William Fenn, Nic Tisdale, and Zach Koch.
Jenkins, who manages the gallery for the Alabama State Council on the Arts, said that an exhibition about artists’ portraits has been on her mind for a while. While working toward her master’s degree in art history at UAB, Jenkins took a course on the history of portraiture from Dr. Lucy Curzon at UA (UA and UAB have a joint program for the MA in art history). During that time, Jenkins said she began thinking, “about all the ways that artists signify meaning and how portraiture can affirm, manipulate or deconstruct that meaning.” In this show, Jenkins has put together what she terms a “sampler” of Alabama artists who are exploring portraiture in a variety of ways: in a traditional sense; in “erasure portraiture;” in the “relationship between physical place and portraits;” as well as in portraiture as a document of disability and physical illness, “with brutal and unflinching honesty,” she added.
The Georgine Clarke Alabama Artists Gallery is open Monday – Friday from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. The gallery will be closed on November 24 and 25 as well as December 26 in observance of state holidays. The gallery is on the first floor of the RSA Tower in downtown Montgomery at 201 Monroe Street, Suite 110. For more information, contact gallery manager Amy Jenkins at 334-242-5150 or amy.jenkins@arts.alabama.gov.
For more information about The University of Alabama’s programs in studio art and art history, visit our Degree Programs page.