Exhibition: Passage: Celestia Morgan MA Exhibition
Dates: April 18-May 3, 2016
Where: Sella-Granata Art Gallery, 109 Woods Hall, UA campus
Reception: Thursday, April 21, 5-7 p.m., Sella-Granata Art Gallery
The University of Alabama Department of Art and Art History is pleased to present Celestia Morgan‘s master of arts exhibition, Passage, April 18-May 3, in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery in Woods Hall on UA campus. There will be a reception for the artist on Thursday, April 21, 5-7 p.m. The public is cordially invited to attend.
Artist’s Statement: Passage explores the connections between social landscapes, memory, history and identity. Private and public perceptions of landscape are explored through a series of tondo (round format) photographs and carved wood block panels. These photographs and maps depict personal historical landmarks and GPS map lines within urban neighborhoods in the surrounding areas of Birmingham, Alabama.
The private landscape points to a subjective experience. These tondo photographs shift the perspective between myself and my mother, providing a passageway to the past. The emphasis is focused on specific details that recall history and offers an opportunity for the viewer to gain a sense of what has been lost.
The public explores the qualities of a map line as an indexical mechanism of power. These map lines anchor each landscape in a social, historical frame, serving both as a metaphor and referent, to welcome a larger public to decipher and experience this journey, both collectively and individually. These maps also suggest a personal timeline and progression during a period of social and economic change. — Celestia Morgan
Celestia Morgan is a photographic-based artist working primarily in the area of retrospect imagery. She writes that she found a love for photography in high school with a 35mm camera. “After high school, I hesitated to attend college, but was inspired to be the first member of my family to receive a college education. With great endurance and my faith in God, I accomplished my goal.” Morgan received an Associate Degree in Elementary Education at Lawson State Community College. She earned a BFA in photography at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is currently pursuing her MFA at The University of Alabama. Her work is currently exhibited at Minneapolis Institute of Art in Minneapolis, Minn.; State of the Art: Discovering American Art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark.; Alabama Artist: Birmingham Museum of Art; Birmingham Civil Rights Institute; South X Southeast online feature; UAB Hospital Palliative and Comfort Care Unit and held in numerous private collections across America.
Her artist website is here: http://www.celestiamorgan.com/.
Facebook event page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/222994454729282/
Read the Crimson White’s profile of the artist
A thesis exhibition is one of the requirements for the successful completion of the Master of Arts program. For more information about the graduate programs of the UA Department of Art and Art History, visit our website.
GALLERY VISITOR PARKING ON UA CAMPUS
The Campus Drive Parking Deck at the corner of Hackberry Lane and Campus Drive provides visitor parking at a nominal cost, and is only a five-minute walk to Garland and Woods halls. Buses also run on varying schedules from the deck. To walk to Woods Quad from the parking deck, exit the main doors of the parking deck and cross Hackberry Lane southwest to Margaret Drive. Follow Margaret Drive to Capstone Drive, which runs between Gorgas Library and Garland Hall. Follow Capstone Drive to Garland Hall and the Sarah Moody Gallery of Art, and to Woods Hall and the Sella-Granata Art Gallery. For more information on bus schedules, go to http://crimsonride.ua.edu/