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Photography Students of Gay Burke Honor Her Legacy

Butterfly Effect: Honoring the Legacy of Gay BurkePhoto by Andy Meadows (MFA 1995) created when he was a student of Professor Gay Burke's.
October 5-26, 2018

Reception: Friday, October 5, 5–8 p.m.

The exhibition Butterfly Effect: Honoring the Legacy of Gay Burke features the work of more than 20 artists who studied under Professor Gay Burke over the course of Burke’s 42-year career teaching photography in the Department of Art and Art History at The University of Alabama. Burke passed away in 2017.

An opening reception will be held on First Friday, October 5, 5:30-8:00 p.m. The opening will be a homecoming and reunion for Gay Burke’s students and colleagues.

Former students Elliot Knight and Andy Meadows identified twelve former students of Gay Burke’s spanning the years from 1973 until Gay’s retirement in 2015. Each artist was asked to invite at least two additional photographers to participate. The exhibition will feature work that the artists created during their college years learning from Gay, as well as work they created more recently. The exhibitors include Photo of Professor Gay Burke preparing for class, taken by an unknown student, in the 1970s.Sarah Ann Austin, Barbara Lee Black, Wanrudee Buranakorn, Breanna Conley, Kathleen Fetters, Jenny Fine, Karen Graffeo, Johnny Goodwin, Ad Kanyalak, Elliot A. Knight, Jim Lockhart, Kristen Mance, Kathryn Joy Mayo, Andy Meadows, Sarah Cusimano Miles, Michael E. Palmer, Ben Rigsby, Laura Shill, Wayne Sides, Emily Thomas, Terrell Taylor and Jerri Wilson. The exhibition will run in conjunction with Gay Burke: The Mother of Alabama Art Photography, an exhibition of 40 works by Gay Burke in The Arts Council Gallery, Oct. 5-26.

The University of Alabama Gallery is located at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center, 620 Greensboro Avenue, Tuscaloosa, AL. Hours are Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.-noon and 1 – 4 p.m. on weekdays and noon – 8 p.m. on the first Friday of the month.

For more information about The University of Alabama’s programs in studio art and art history, go here: https://art.ua.edu/academics/.