Photo: featured artwork by Lucy McMahon
The University Art Gallery presents Redefine, an exhibition of work by graduating art majors Annie Bagay, Adrian Bowie, Lucy McMahon, Mimi Middlebrooks, Colton Treadwell, and Yunxin Xing. In Redefine, the artists seek new perspectives. The pieces presented in the show engage the audience in reevaluation and transformation of experiences of the human body, of memory, of powerful emotions.
Please join us for a series of special events in association with the exhibition! The opening reception will take place in the University Art Gallery on Friday, April 15 from 4:30-6:00 p.m.. On Friday, April 22, the artists will present their work in Convocation Hall beginning at 1:00 p.m., as part of Scholarship Sewanee. On Saturday, May 7 from 12:00-3:00 p.m., the University Art Gallery will host a Baccalaureate Reception, celebrating the graduating seniors and the success of the 2015-2016 season!
Annie Bagay is pursuing a double major in art and mathematics. In painting, drawing, and video, she explores the intersection where normal meets strange and mysterious. Her work, invoking the grotesque and the bizarre, elicits uncomfortable, even unpleasant, sensations in the viewer.
Adrian Bowie was born in Washington D.C.. Inspired to make art by the memory of his troubled past, Bowie explores memories of traumatic events and how those memories affect a person with the passage of time. He seeks to bring new meaning to commonplace objects and to create a sense of “brokenness” in his depictions of objects associated with childhood. Bowie’s works in charcoal exploit the hands-on tactility of the medium to reinforce his connection to the work in the face of its difficult subject matter.
Born and raised in Arlington, Virginia, Lucy McMahon is completing a major in art and a minor in art history. McMahon’s painted nude female figures, larger than life, dominate her canvases. The painted bodies, built with loose brushstrokes resembling collage, remain headless and anonymous. These bodies challenge the viewer, eliciting appreciation and celebration as well as critique and judgment.
Mimi Middlebrooks is from Suwanee, Georgia. Middlebrooks explores transformations of the human form and an understanding of the body as a place. Disembodiment and fragmentation speak to feelings of being lost or incomplete, while maps symbolize the transformation that derives from discovering a place of belonging within one’s own body.
Colton Treadwell, from Waco, Texas, is completing a double major in psychology and art. Treadwell’s work explores the tactile components of self-destructive experiences. Instead of depicting or acting upon a physical body, his work makes manifest the actions and thoughts that lead to self-harm.
Born in mainland China, Yunxin Xing is completing a double major in English and Art. Fascinated by the psychological battles of mental and emotional landscapes, she translates complex experience into the abstract language of art. Inspired by both the Abstract Expressionists and Chinese long scroll ink painting, her large scale drawings embrace improvisation. The artist regards the painting surface as a stage, and her entire body as her means of expression.
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 – 5 Tuesday through Friday and 12 – 4 on Saturday and Sunday. For more information, please call (931) 598-1223, visit our website at gallery.sewanee.edu, sign up for our e-mail and mailing lists, or follow us on Facebook (University Art Gallery, The University of the South)!
Featuring: Adrian Bowie, Annie Bagay, Colton Treadwell, Lucy McMahon, Mimi Middlebrooks, and Yunxin Xing.
Held: University Art Gallery, Sewanee: The University of the South April 15-May 7, 2016
Press release courtesy of the Sewanee Art Department