Opening Reception: Friday, October 9, 6 – 9 pm
Performance: Sunday, October 25, 2 pm
You Are the Hole is the theatre of desire, abstracted. By presenting the self as something constructed and performed, Joel Parsons gently prods the human dichotomy of yearning to divulge and yearning to conceal.
Using the structural components of a theatre, he establishes an installation space that is simultaneously formal and intimate. Occupying the transformed stage are sculptures in voluptuous pinks and nudes, a flesh-like latex curtain and dozens of small drawings. Parsons has made a zine to accompany the exhibition, which will be available in the gallery.
The culmination is Parsons’ performance of his originally-choreographed piece, “Beholding and Being Held.”
Joel Parsons is an artist, writer, and curator based in Memphis, TN. He is an Assistant Professor of Art and Director of Clough-Hanson Gallery at Rhodes College, co-director of Beige, an otherwise space for art and performance, and a founding member of the ArtsMemphis Artist Advisory Council. A graduate of Rhodes College and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he has exhibited his work in Memphis at the Powerhouse, Material, and Southfork Gallery, as well as at Western Exhibtions in Chicago, and venues in Peru, India, and South Africa.
