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SUMMARY:Spring Exhibitions
DESCRIPTION:Crosstown Arts presents three exhibitions: Shades of Heritage by Wiley Henry\, A Rabbit With a Gun by Lawrence Matthews\, and Club Walrus\, Fluvial Effluvia\, and Know No Now by Karl Erickson. The exhibitions bring together three distinct artistic practices that explore themes of heritage\, perception\, identity\, and humanity’s relationship with the wider world. \nOn view through June 7\, 2026\, the exhibitions highlight artists working across painting\, drawing\, animation\, installation\, and multimedia forms\, each approaching the act of representation from a unique perspective. \n\nShades of Heritage — Wiley Henry\nIn Shades of Heritage\, Wiley Henry presents a selection of paintings and drawings centered on the human figure and the formative influence of personal history. Through traditional realist techniques\, Henry explores how heritage shapes identity and artistic expression. \nThe exhibition reflects Henry’s belief that his work emerges directly from the experiences that shaped him. As the artist explains\, the works collectively “reflect my identity\, artistic perspective\, and creative approach\,” emphasizing the role heritage plays in both subject and meaning. \nHenry’s fascination with the human form allows him to depict figures with ease and emotional immediacy. He describes this connection as inseparable from his upbringing and the environment that formed him: “I am who I am because of my heritage.” \nAlthough the exhibition is not explicitly religious\, Henry notes that spiritual themes often surface within his work. In several pieces he depicts gatherings of Black angels and children in celestial settings\, continuing a long tradition of artists who have portrayed angelic figures throughout history. \nHenry is a Memphis-born artist whose work has been widely reproduced and commissioned for portraits of prominent individuals\, including judges\, actors\, politicians\, and community leaders. A graduate of the Memphis College of Art\, he has built a career rooted in traditional realism and a distinctive ability to capture what he describes as the “essence of the human spirit.” \n\nA Rabbit With a Gun — Lawrence Matthews\nLawrence Matthews’ A Rabbit With a Gun explores the unsettling feeling that reality itself may be unstable. The exhibition grew out of the artist’s immersion in media and ideas about altered perception and the uncanny nature of everyday life. \nMatthews describes his recent years as a period spent grappling with the feeling that something about existence feels “off”—that space\, time\, and social interactions sometimes behave in strange or unpredictable ways. “People are confusing\,” he writes. “Time moves in ways which it shouldn’t. Months zoom past in hours.” \nIn this body of work\, Matthews imagines what might happen if one actively pushes against those familiar routines and expectations. He describes venturing “further and further into spaces off the path—in the world\, in my past and in my own head.” The works become attempts to share those moments when perception shifts and the boundaries of reality feel fluid. \nBorn and raised in a neighborhood between the Mississippi border\, Memphis city limits\, and the surrounding suburbs\, Matthews’ life experience informs a sensibility closely aligned with Southern Gothic traditions. His work draws from the emotional tension of those environments—places both overlooked and deeply personal. \nMatthews holds a BFA from the University of Memphis and has spent more than a decade exhibiting\, performing\, and collaborating with arts organizations. His multidisciplinary practice blends visual art\, performance\, and narrative into works that reflect the intertwined experiences of memory\, place\, and identity. \n\nClub Walrus\, Fluvial Effluvia\, and Know No Now — Karl Erickson\nKarl Erickson’s exhibition combines digital animation\, installation\, and audio-visual experimentation to explore a world in which humans are only one of many active participants. His work asks viewers to consider the agency of the “other-than-human” entities that share the planet with us. \nFor Erickson\, this includes plants\, animals\, machines\, trash\, electricity\, and the microscopic systems that underpin life itself. The complex tools he uses—such as photogrammetry\, modular synthesizers\, and 3D animation—mirror the complexity of ecological systems. \nWithin these animated environments\, meaning becomes unstable and identities shift. Erickson intentionally disrupts conventional structures of logic and interpretation\, allowing nonsense\, humor\, and absurdity to proliferate. This approach challenges what he describes as the “authoritative\, single-minded way of understanding the world” that privileges strict rational order above all else. \nMany of Erickson’s digital puppets are built from discarded materials\, emphasizing the interconnected assemblage of things that make up the world. By animating these objects and giving them uncanny life\, he invites viewers to reconsider their relationship with the physical environment. \nErickson’s work has been presented widely in galleries\, museums\, film festivals\, and performance spaces. His animation Know No Now has screened internationally and received the Best Animation award at the Chroma Art Film Festival in Miami. \n\nOn View at Crosstown Arts\nTogether\, these three exhibitions offer distinct but complementary perspectives on the human experience—from the shaping power of heritage\, to the instability of perception\, to the broader networks of life and matter that surround us. \nThe exhibitions remain on view at Crosstown Arts in Memphis through June 7\, 2026.
URL:https://crosstownarts.org/calendar/spring-exhibitions/
LOCATION:Crosstown Arts Galleries\, 1350 Concourse Ave.\, Suite 280\, Memphis\, TN\, 38104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Gallery
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20260425T193000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20260425T213000
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SUMMARY:Memphis Jazz Orchestra featuring Michael Dease
DESCRIPTION:Memphis Jazz Orchestra featuring Michael Dease\nThe Green Room at Crosstown Arts \nSaturday\, April 25th\, 2026\nDoors open at 7:00 PM | Show starts at 7:30 PM\n$25 in advance | $30 at the door \nPURCHASE TICKETS HERE\nJoin the Memphis Jazz Orchestra for a special one-night only performance at the Green Room at Crosstown Arts featuring one of the preeminent trombonists of the current era\, Michael Dease! \nMichael Dease is one of the world’s eminent trombonists\, lending his versatile sound and signature improvisations to over 200 recordings and groups as diverse as Grammy-winning artists David Sanborn\, Christian McBride\, Kanye West\, Michel Camilo\, and Alicia Keys. Born in Augusta\, Georgia\, he played the saxophone and trumpet before choosing the trombone at age 17. In 2001\, Dease moved to New York City to become part of the historic first class of jazz students at The Juilliard School\, earning both Bachelors and Masters degrees\, and quickly established a reputation as a brilliant soloist\, side-person\, and bandleader. \nGive It All You Got (Posi-Tone\, 2021) received positive acclaim from JazzTimes Magazine and a coveted 4-star review from Downbeat Magazine. The music centers on themes of devotion to the past and future of the jazz lineage\, realized at the Jazz Institute at Brevard where he serves as director. As a bandleader\, this is Dease’s eighth album for Posi-Tone\, fourteenth of his career\, and features Gregory Tardy\, Ulysses Owens\, as well as his wife Gwen Dease and eldest daughter Brooklyn Dease on percussion. Since then\, he has released Best Next Thing (Posi-Tone\, 2022)\, his baritone saxophone recording debut on Swing Low (Posi-Tone\, 2023)\, two albums featuring music from composer Gregg Hill\, The Other Shoe (Origin\, 2023) and Found in Space (Origin\, 2024)\, plus Groves Groove (Le Coq Records\, 2024)\, and City Life (Origin\, 2025). \nDownbeat Magazine named Dease the 2016 Rising Star Jazz Trombonist. He then won the magazine’s Critics Poll for 2021 Trombonist of the Year\, an award granted in subsequent years as well. He is a three-time Grammy award winner with Christian McBride and Alicia Keys and a sought-after lead\, section\, and bass trombonist with today’s leading jazz orchestras. His experiences include bands led by Christian McBride\, Roy Hargrove\, Nicholas Payton\, Charles Tolliver\, Rufus Reid\, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra\, and the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band. However\, it is on the frontline of small groups led by master musicians like The Heath Brothers\, Winard Harper\, Renee Rosnes\, Bill Charlap\, Claudio Roditi\, and Lewis Nash\, where Dease has revitalized the trombone’s image. Not content to simply improvise\, Dease arranges and composes for many different bands\, constantly adjusting his tone and timbre to add just the right flavor to the music. \nMichael Dease is an enthusiastic endorser and Performing Artist for Yamaha Trombones\, Trumpets and Saxophones\, Pickett-Blackburn brass mouthpieces\, and the custom repair services of expert craftsman Scott Sweeney of Sweeney Brass in Raleigh\, North Carolina. Most importantly\, he enjoys spending time with his extraordinary wife and Professor of Percussion at MSU\, Gwendolyn Dease\, and their daughters Brooklyn and Charly.
URL:https://crosstownarts.org/calendar/memphis-jazz-orchestra-featuring-michael-dease/
LOCATION:Crosstown Arts\, The Green Room\, 1350 Concourse Ave.\, Suite 280\, Memphis\, TN\, 38104\, United States
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