The University Art Gallery presents FOUR, an exhibition of work by graduating art majors Andy Daverman, Megan Ebel, Margaret McClain, and Trigg Summs. Please join us for a series of special events in association with the exhibition. On Friday, April 17 at 4:30 pm the exhibition’s opening reception will take place in the University Art Gallery. On April 18, the artists will present their work in Convocation Hall, beginning at 1:30 pm. On Saturday, May 9 from 1:00-3:00 pm, the University Art Gallery will host a Baccalaureate Reception, celebrating the graduating seniors and the close of the 2014-2015 exhibition season!
FOUR brings together a selection of work dealing with distortion, glitches, decay, and transformation. Each of the artists included in the exhibition uses layering, collage, appropriation, and manipulation to create a new way of looking at the world that challenges one’s comfort in the everyday. Topographic-like images of dazzling color contrast with the soft gray scale of skulls and bones. The cool flatness of digitally created images is juxtaposed with the detailed lines and patterns of hand-drawn figures rendered in pen. With distinct styles and techniques, each artist gives the viewer a glimpse into an internal world. Andy Daverman comes from Nashville, TN. His drawings, paintings, and mixed media digital pieces have a graphic, illustrative style. Daverman creates worlds with conflicting, contradictory, and sometimes violent elements to evoke implied narratives that capture the viewer’s imagination. Born in 1992 in Ottawa, Ontario, Megan Ebel has focused her studies at the University of the South on film and sculpture.
Exploring social movements and activism, her work often represents the human experience in a biographical or diaristic fashion. By ornamenting historic images or symbols with references to street art, and by disrupting and distorting appropriated images, she examines our reactions to the manipulation of social conflict. Ebel’s work can be found in public and private art spaces, in Missouri, Texas, and Tennessee. After graduation she is planning to live and work in Houston, Texas.
Margaret McClain is originally from Wilmington, NC. During her time as a student at the University of the South, her paintings and drawings have been exhibited at local Sewanee venues, including Stirling’s Coffee House and IONA: Art Sanctuary. She uses a variety of media – drawing, painting, collage, and film photography – to explore animal forms and the effects of environmental disruption on different species. After graduation she plans to move to Denver, CO, to pursue a career in design.
Trigg Summs was raised in Cookeville, TN. His studio practice at the University of the South has focused on drawing and digital arts. He pulls forms from the environment, distorts them, and covers their surfaces with dense patterns to explore relationships between exterior and interior and, by extension, the representation of identity. Summs has exhibited locally at the IONA: Art Sanctuary gallery, and has plans to continue his studies in graduate school.
Sewanee’s University Art Gallery is located on Georgia Avenue on the campus of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. The gallery is free, accessible, and open to the public. Hours are 10 through Tuesday through Friday and noon through 4 on Saturday and Sunday. For more information, please call (931) 598-1223, visit our website, sign up for our e-mail and mailing lists, or follow us on Facebook (University Art Gallery, The University of the South)!