News

Tobias Layman MFA Thesis Exhibition

Graduate student in sculpture Tobias Layman will present his master of fine arts thesis exhibition, Out of Order, at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center in The Arts Council Gallery March 12-30, 2018. A reception for the artist will be held Thursday, March 22 from 5-7 pm. Tobias Layman MFA show card 2018

Layman works in kinetic sculpture created from wood, metal and found objects. He writes in his artist statement that his sculptures are something more than the run-of-the-mill machine. They “share experiences and sensations for an audience. The rough and unrefined aesthetic give the machines character and personality. The machines play with found objects in a way to trigger memories for an audience. Without the object the machine is a just a machine, but with the object the machine now has a sentient purpose. The object serves as a way for the machine to better engage with an audience. A conversation is started, centered around the found object. The machine tells a story and, in turn, generates stories from an audience. The machine will tell the same story in the same manner, but the audience will interact with that story and change it in their own way. This is the intent of my kinetic sculptures. They are the means for people to share a common bond and relation with a machine, but also interact and engage with other people.”

Tobias Layman talking about his work in the Graduate Student ShowTobias Layman is a graduate student in sculpture , with an assistantship teaching courses in Ceramics I, Drawing I and 3D Design. Layman received the BFA, cum laude, in ceramics, from Jacksonville State University in 2014. He presented his MA exhibition, Grinding Away, in February 2017 at the Sella-Granata Art Gallery on UA campus. He has exhibited in national and regional exhibitions including 35 Live: CoCA Member’s Show, Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, WA; DAMNED IX, Detroit, MI; A Different Vision, Plymouth, MA; The Big Dance Exhibit, a juried exhibition in Des Moines, IA; and Abstracts Art Exhibition, Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery, where he received an honorable mention. In 2017, he took third place at the KAO International Kinetic Art Competition in Boynton Beach, Florida. Layman has been a studio assistant for the Department of Art at Jacksonville State University, an assistant instructor at John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC, and an instructor and ceramic technician at Earthworks Pottery Studio in Rome, GA. He is a recipient of the Thames Endowed Scholarship and the Joseph and Allen Sella Endowed Scholarship at UA.

See videos of Tobias Layman’s kinetic sculptures here: http://talsculpture.weebly.com/videos.html. A gallery talk he gave during the department’s 2017 Graduate Student Show about his work process is in a video here: https://vimeo.com/240537838.

This exhibition is in partial fulfillment of the Master of Fine Arts degree in the Department of Art and Art History at The University of Alabama. For more information on the graduate programs of the UA department of art and art history, visit this link: https://art.ua.edu/academics/graduate-programs/art-requirements/

The Arts Council Gallery is open weekdays 9 a.m.-noon and 1-4 p.m. with free admission.

The Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center is located at 620 Greensboro Avenue in Downtown Tuscaloosa. For more information about the CAC, The Arts Council or Bama Theatre, patrons should LIKE the Facebook page “The Arts Council – Bama Theatre – Cultural Arts Center” and follow tuscarts on Twitter. Call 205-758-5195 or visit tuscarts.org for further information.