Tag: Visual Arts

Open Crit

430 N. Cleveland
Second Tuesday of Each Month
Artist Setup: 5 – 6 pm / Critique & Discussion: 6 – 8 pm

Crosstown Arts’ Open Crit series, organized in partnership with ArtsMemphis, is a monthly critique event where visual artists are invited to bring new and/or in-progress studio work for critical feedback and group discussion particular to each artist’s practice. The series will take place at Crosstown Arts exhibition space at 430 N. Cleveland.

A dedicated facilitator with experience in a group critique setting will guide discussion for each critique event, which will include up to 4 artists’ work, with 15-25 minutes devoted to the work of each.

All visual artists and anyone interested in joining the discussion are welcome to participate regardless of their level of expertise, prior professional art experience or background/edu- cation in fine art. Participation is free and open to the public. Input during the critiques from everyone in attendance is welcomed and encouraged.

No formal preparation is necessary for participating artists, who will have an opportunity to introduce and contextualize their work on view at the beginning of each critique. Par- ticipating artists are only asked to be open to (and interested in) considering reactions to their work by the group, which will always be done in a supportive, constructive and casual environment, but could at the same time be challenging.

 

To participate, artists can send the following info via email to Brittney Bullock (brittney@ crosstownarts.org) with the subject line “Open Crit.” Submissions will be accepted and scheduled based on availability. There is no submission fee.

  • Name
  • Phone number
  • Email address
  • General description of the work to be discussed (i.e. “abstract paintings” or “video art”) & sizes of works and/or media types

Artists are asked to bring no more than 8 individual pieces (in any medium). Maximum run time for time-based work(s) is 10 minutes.

Participating artists are encouraged to invite friends, peers and colleagues to the open crits, both to see their work in progress and to give constructive feedback.

Organized by Crosstown Arts in partnership with ArtsMemphis ArtsAccelerator.

Belongings

An open call exhibition organized by Crosstown Arts and the Cleveland Street Flea Market

A flea market is filled with unique objects invoking curiosity, nostalgia, humor and surprise. A blue and white Pyrex bowl recalls helping Grandma mix stuffing for holidays past. A cut-crystal candy dish reminds us just how much we love that old-world pink color. A darkly framed formula-landscape evokes dreams of scary monsters. A planet-shaped radio, reflecting design aspects of the early Star Wars days, reminds us of the exact one we had as a kid, except in yellow. These objects and curiosities are a ripe cache for inspiration – as is the community at the Cleveland Street Flea Market where some of the vendors have been in business there since the market opened sixteen years ago.

Artists are invited to participate in the Belongings exhibition by purchasing any object of inspiration from the Cleveland Street Flea Market to transform into (or use as inspiration for) a new work of art.

All artists are welcome to participate regardless of their level of expertise or prior art experience.

***Opening Reception: Friday, March 27, 6-9 pm PLUS installation by Mark Nowell at the Cleveland Street Flea Market AND open hours at you+me on view at 422 N. Cleveland Gallery
***Gallery Crawl + Group Discussion: Saturday, March 28, 2 pm
***Exhibition open: Friday-Sunday, March 27-29, noon – 6 pm

An open call exhibition organized by Crosstown Arts and the Cleveland Street Flea Mark

Download Belongings artwork list

Please contact Mary Jo Karimnia (626-6298 / maryjo@crosstownarts.org) or individual artists with sales inquiries. Crosstown Arts does not manage sales or take commissions.

Perpetual Discourse

Artists’ Statements

Tori Cooper

Currently, my artwork focuses on the cultural, emotional and psychological connection to physical items and the process of repetitive action. We endlessly attach emotional significance to physical items. The item then comes to represent something greater and more powerful than a simple disposable object. The item becomes a tangible extension of emotions and memory. Thus, the mind and the spirit alike have great difficulty relinquishing these items of personal significance.

The series consists of interwoven reeds into 6″x6″ canvases. The movement of the reeds is seamless, having truly no end or beginning, but the direction of each reed changes. Some move rapidly in a whipping motion. While other pieces in the series are fluid and subtle and others cradling and protective. Each piece represents an emotional state of being present during the creation of the piece. Thus, the series seamlessly connects the artist, the viewer and the expressed emotional state of being in the piece.

Trevor Simpson

In this series I have set out to manipulate the plasticity of composition and form in unexpected arrangements. I allow for the viewer to be engaged in the compositional formulation of each piece. The viewer’s eye and imagination is left free to play within the negative and positive space of each piece. Thematically the series is a process-based exploration of form as well as a 2d interpretation of Tori Cooper’s 3d assemblages.

Ultimately, the pieces in the series create a collective lexicon of seemingly disparate arrangements. The series is a commentary on synchronicity and aligning what on the surface may appear to be fragmented.

Healing Space

An environment of selected works by the artists and patients of the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Tower 2 Project, organized and curated by Youngblood Studio.

Featuring work by Jeanne Seagle, Lurlynn Franklin, Janet Beaver, Kong Wee Pang, Jay Crum, Alex Warble and Danny Broadway

Filling a hospital with art has been shown to support the well-being of patients, families and staff. The use of color and imagery can create a healing environment that lowers stress and anxiety and can also be used to encourage rehabilitation. Each art program at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is aimed at promoting healing, transforming the hospital experience and bringing joy. The hospital’s commitment to filling the environment with local art is seen throughout campus in murals, paintings and prints, sculpture, mosaics, flooring and colorful designs.

Six years ago, a new tower was built and named the Chili’s Care Center. Instead of filling the corridors with murals, hospital planners opted to populate each floor with framed artwork consisting of pieces from local artists and patients, as well as photographs that would be displayed in custom-made, colorful frames unique to the tower’s interior. While the tower was under construction, several local artists moved into it, set up studios and created a large body of work for the project.

Together, with art produced by patients and images created by St. Jude photographers, hundreds of pieces were permanently displayed in the corridors of every floor within the tower. Today, patients, families and staff walking the halls experience art created for them and by them; these individuals also view photos of themselves and of those who support them.

Because of the success of the Chili’s Care Center art program, hospital planners decided that the next tower, currently under construction and known as “Tower 2,” would house a similar art program. Seven artists were invited to participate in the Tower 2 Project. Jeanne Seagle, Lurlynn Franklin and Janet Beaver were three artists from the original group who were asked to participate in this new project.

The remaining four were Kong wee Pang, Jay Crum, Alex Warble and Danny Broadway. Seagle, Beaver, Broadway and Warble set up studios on campus, while the remaining three worked from their personal studios. All of the artists participated in tours and were given open access to explore and experience the campus and the people. They were also provided color samples of the new tower’s interior and encouraged to not only pull from their experience at St. Jude, but to also create work that might draw the viewer in to find something new.

Each artist participated in at least one “painting party” with patients and families. These parties were designed not only to fill the new tower with patient work, but also to provide artists, patients and families with a fun and therapeutic experience. The artists together produced more than 100 pieces during their four-week residency, while patients and families produced more than 100 paintings during their seven painting parties.

HEALING SPACE is a sample of the work produced during the Tower 2 Project. This show displays the pieces for public view before permanent installation while illustrating the importance of color and connection in a therapeutic environment.

-Youngblood Studio, LLC

Lester Merriwhether

Lester Merriweather

Crosstown Arts is pleased to present Colossus, an exhibition of new large-scale collage works by Memphis artist Lester Merriweather.

Lester Merriweather (b.1978) is a Memphis-based visual artist. He attended the prestigious Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture. He holds an MFA from Memphis College of Art & a BA from Jackson State University. Merriweather has exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. at various venues such as the Studio Museum in Harlem, NYC, TOPS Gallery, Powerhouse Memphis, Diverseworks in Houston, and the Contemporary in Atlanta. He has also exhibited abroad at the Zacheta National Gallery in Warsaw, Poland. He currently serves as the Curatorial Director of the Martha & Robert Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art at the University of Memphis. He also serves on the board of Number, inc. and as a member of ArtsMemphis’ Artist Advisory Council.

Valerie Piraino: Reconstruction

Valerie Piraino

Crosstown Arts is pleased to present Reconstruction, an exhibition of works by New York-based artist Valerie Piraino. Her work examines how sentimental objects are used to rebuild portraits of place and time. With slide installations, framed porcelain cameos, and works on paper, Piraino uses conditions from a recollected past to address the meaning of nostalgia and memory. The artist will visit Memphis and present a discussion of her work on Wednesday, November 20, at 6 pm at the gallery.

Valerie Piraino (b. 1981 Kigali, Rwanda) received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2004 and her MFA from Columbia University in 2009.  She was artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 2009-2010 and was nominated for the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant in 2011 and 2012.  Recent and forthcoming exhibitions include “Could Not Bear the Sight of It” Contemporary Art Interventions on Critical Whiteness at the Jane Addams Hull House Museum, Chicago, Illinois (2014), Photoplay at Cindy Rucker Gallery, New York, NY (2013), Present Future at Artissima, Turin, Italy (2013). She lives and works in New York City.

Artist Talk: Wednesday, November 20, 6 pm (5:30 reception)
Discussion moderated by Cedar Lorca Nordbye

Artist Statement 2013

“Working in installation, sculpture and photography, my work explores how images can be re-contextualized.   I think of homes and domestic spaces as sites that are integral to influencing subjectivity, in particular family photographs and slides.

I look to personal mementos as malleable forms. Working from an archive of slides, I create immersive tableaux that critique nostalgia. Drawing from theater, cinema and literature, I make dramatic and disorienting settings that house projected slides. My photographs are a more literal take on malleability, where slides are projected on to fabric and manipulated.  I work to create a psychological backdrop where personal narratives are continuously re-interpreted.”

http://www.valeriepiraino.com

Crosstown Arts thanks Elliot Perry for co-organizing this exhibition.

Image: Valerie Piraino, With Pen in Hand, 2010, frames, slide projectors, slides, tables, 7’x7’x9’

Valerie Piraino: Reconstruction
October 18-November 30, 2013

Crosstown Arts
422 N. Cleveland
Memphis, TN 38104