Now on exhibit in The University of Alabama Gallery in Tuscaloosa’s Cultural Arts Center is a show combining the sculptures of a professor and student, a mentor and fledging artist. UA Sculpture: Virginia Eckinger and Craig Wedderspoon will be on display at the gallery through July 31.
They have never exhibited in a two-person show until Wedderspoon suggested it. “I was curious to see our work together,” he said. After seeing their work in the gallery, he responded, “I think the two sets of work communicate with each other. My work sets the stage for hers, almost in the sense of defining an outside world within which her characters interact and exist.”
Eckinger is a recent Master of Arts graduate in sculpture and Wedderspoon was one of her professors. Wedderspoon has built a body of work around texture and abstract forms in nature; Eckinger’s work deals with humans and animals, often in a narrative context.
Wedderspoon, associate professor in the Department of Art and Art History, teaches all levels of graduate and undergraduate sculpture and three-dimensional design. As a sculptor, he specializes in metal and wood fabrication, and works in a variety of scales for both indoor and outdoor, permanent and temporary installations. He has exhibited nationally and internationally. His work, Quilted Vessel, will be at the Birmingham Museum of Art through January 4, 2015.
Eckinger grew up in Birmingham, Ala., and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture from Washington University in Saint Louis. She continued her study of the arts here in Tuscaloosa at The University of Alabama and received her master’s degree in art this spring. She will open a studio in downtown Northport with fellow artists Anne Herbert and Claire Lewis Evans.
The University of Alabama Gallery in Tuscaloosa’s Cultural Arts Center is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and the First Fridays of every month until 8 p.m. For more information call the gallery at 205-345-3038 or call 205-342-2060.
CONTACT: Katie McAllister, 205-345-3038, mcall007@as.ua.edu