Chair and Professor Jason Guynes will present a solo exhibition of his paintings and drawings titled Unrealism June 3 through July 29, 2022, in The Arts Council Gallery at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center. The gallery will hold a reception on June 3 during the First Friday Art Walk from 5 p.m.-7 p.m.
“Unrealism is an attempt to depict reality in a contemporary form which inevitably entails an effort to capture that which is not seen and which goes beyond knowing from a purely visual standpoint. The work in this exhibit contains pieces from two bodies of work addressing different themes in similar ways. The oil paintings are from a series exploring the artist’s personal narratives and the drawings deal with experience and memory as it relates to place,” according to gallery’s press release.
“The paintings relate to my upbringing among people who enjoy a good story. The struggle I engage in is to construct a narrative that has universal appeal, but to do so in a way that displays a uniqueness of personal experience, and that adequately captures those parts of any story that are felt rather than seen,” Guynes said.
Guynes exhibits his work internationally in competitions, galleries, and museums, and his work has been featured in Creative Quarterly’s virtual gallery, Negative Capability Journal, and Manifest Gallery’s International Painting Annual 8. In addition to exhibitions, he has completed numerous private and public mural commissions throughout the United States with major commissions in Mesa, Ariz., Joplin, Missouri, Philadelphia, Penn., and Mobile, Ala. Before coming to UA in 2016, Jason Guynes was professor and chair of the Department of Visual Arts at the University of South Alabama. A Mississippi native, Guynes received the MFA from Tulane University and the BA in art from Belhaven College. He has had academic appointments at universities in Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Alabama. Guynes held the post of department chair at the University of West Alabama from 1995 to 2005. While at UWA, he founded and served as director of the UWA Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition, an ongoing national exhibition. He is past president of SECAC, the second largest arts organization of its kind in the US.
Read the press release on The Arts Council Gallery’s website.
The Arts Council Gallery and UA Gallery hours are weekdays 9 a.m.- noon and 1-4 p.m. For more information about The Arts Council gallery visit their website or call 205-758-5195. The Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center is located at 620 Greensboro Avenue in downtown Tuscaloosa. For more information about The Arts Council or Bama Theatre, patrons should follow and like “The Arts Council – Bama Theatre – Cultural Arts Center” on Facebook and also Instagram @tuscaloosaartscouncil.
For more information about the programs in the UA Department of Art and Art History, go to this page or contact the department at (205) 348-5967.