Calendar of Events

Solo show by Margaret Scanlan in the gallery, opens Fri Mar 1
Champagne Saturday from 11 AM - 4 PM, meet the artist from 1-3 PM

Bennett, 5308 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919. Hours: M-Sa 10-5:30. Information: 865-584-6791, https://bennetthome.com

Dubbed “the assembly-line Picasso” by Time magazine, Steve Keene’s vibrant and engaging paintings emerge from a punk-rock ethos that upends the usual conventions of the art world. Working from his Brooklyn studio, Keene creates 50+ paintings each day, producing over 300,000 pieces during a career that now spans more than 30 years.

The revolutionary Steve Keene will join the Big Ears Festival (Mar 21-24) with a live, experiential painting performance. Keene will have a pop-up studio, RED Gallery in Knoxville’s historic Old City, for people to watch him create dozens of pieces at a time, with his iconic process, usually painted in series of four- or six-of-a-kind. He utilizes quick-drying acrylic paints and a screen-printing technique of moving from broad swaths of color and gradually moving to the more detailed work.

As a prelude to Steve Keene’s live painting appearance at Big Ears, the festival is presenting the debut of The Hirschhorn Collection's “Paintings by Steve Keene.” This expansive exhibition of some of his rarer works will open on March 1 and continue through March 29 in at the RED Gallery, located on Jackson Ave in Knoxville’s Old City.

Make sure to visit the gallery during your stay to watch him work!

RED Gallery, 130 W. Jackson Ave, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-524-0146 or https://www.facebook.com/REDgalleryKNOX/

Knoxville Watercolor Society Exhibition
Art Exhibit at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church
Free and open to the public
When: Reception Friday, February 16, 2024, 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. Artists’ talks at 6:30 p.m.

Gallery hours: 9:30-4:30 Monday through Thursday and 9:00-1:00 Sunday
2931 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37918

Knoxville Watercolor Society: Passionate About Art
For more than 60 years, the Knoxville Watercolor Society (KWS) has provided area watercolor artists, students and supporters with the only local art organization dedicated to the practice, advancement, and promotion of watercolor as a serious art form. KWS enjoys a long-standing reputation for the artistic excellence, expertise, passion, and mutual support of its members. Membership in KWS is open to all Knoxville area residents 18+, including experienced water-media artists, aspiring or developing water-media artists, art teachers, art students, patrons of the arts, representatives of arts organizations, and vendors. For more information, go to https://knoxvillewatercolorsociety.weebly.com/ or https://www.facebook.com/knoxville.watercolor.society/

February – March 2024

Sonia Jackson Summers received her Bachelors in College Scholars: Illustration and Writing from The University of Tennessee in 2008. During her time at the University of Tennessee, Sonia cartooned for “The Daily Beacon.”

In 2011, Sonia married and relocated to her husband’s hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, and during that time Sonia was commissioned to participate in Vulcan Park and Museum’s public art project called “Vulcans on Parade.” Sonia’s painted Vulcan statues stand on display in two downtown Birmingham businesses. Sonia has work in the permanent collection of The Joy Gallery in Homewood, Alabama and rotating art at the Blue Phrog Gallery in Montevallo, Alabama.

Since moving back to Knoxville with her husband and kids in 2019, Sonia has broadened her scope to include painting en plein air (live on-site landscape painting), as well as competitive sidewalk chalk art/“Madonnari” festivals and sidewalk chalk art commissions, in addition to her fine art, illustration, and murals. Sonia has a deep appreciation for Impressionism, focusing on bridging the relationship between observation and interpretation, impressionistic capabilities of skill and realistic reaction in rendering. Sonia enjoys public art such as murals and sidewalk chalk for their ability to make art accessible to everyone.

In 2023 Sonia accepted the Fine Arts Teaching position at Chesterton Academy, a new classical high school in Knoxville. She also teaches recreational art classes at Painting with a Twist in Farragut.

Sonia’s art can be seen in sidewalk chalk/madonnari festivals, such as the Dogwood Arts Chalk Walk, through exhibitions with both the Arts and Culture Alliance and Dogwood Arts, and she currently has a mural featured by Dogwood Arts in Strong Alley in downtown Knoxville.

https://knoxbijou.org/community-outreach-2/art-gallery/

MAIN GALLERY
Reception Feb. 2, 5-8 PM
https://andrewscottross.com/home.html
https://tristararts.org/the-gallery/f/a-drawing-of-a-lion-shaped-by-fear

Tri-Star Arts at Candoro Marble Building, 4450 Candora Drive, Knoxville, TN 37920. Hours: Tu-Sa 11-5. Information: https://tristararts.org/visit

First Friday February 2nd 6-9pm at Relay Ridge

-Jenn Kaplan "No Sudden Movements" opening gallery reception
-Open Artist Studios
-Printmaking demos/artist features in the printshop

Jennifer Kaplan invites participants to slow down and listen to the nuances of verbal and nonverbal communication. This show emphasizes the isolated gestures of touch through a progression blend of functional and figurative forms, giving shape to that which exists inside us and has been shapeless. Clay has the capacity to communicate what cannot be said, what is unspeakable, where words fail.

“Where I End and You Begin” are a series of entangled bodies which follow the gestural action of hands folding into one another, signing in motions of tenderness, reception, and formal fluidity. These tangled masses are finished in waxes and chalk, raw and bright, or crater glazes, molten and encrusted, with blurred edges, to amplify the soft strength of vulnerable participation within a community.

Everything is connected and survival is en masse. Hope lives not in isolation but through the potential of collaborative movement. Jennifer’s ceramic practice acts as a filter for understanding cycles of grief and regrowth, encouraging the potential within collaborative action and mutual aid.

We invite you to engage your senses in the relational works but please, be gentle.

Relay Ridge, 4124 McKinley St, Knoxville. https://relayridge.org/ and https://www.instagram.com/relay_ridge/

Artist Carmen Winant’s large-scale collages and installations illuminate the often-invisible experiences of women, as well as feminist strategies for survival, revolt, and self-determination. She explores these themes through objects drawn from and inspired by the archives of Women in Transition (WIT) and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV).

“I am a photographer who no longer makes her own images. My work revisits and recontextualizes the feminist histories that preceded my own, reaching backward as an attempt to understand the space between our lived experiences, and the larger, if nuanced and sometimes contradictory, aims of women’s liberation. As such the found photographs that run throughout my work — integrated into books, installations, billboards, or discrete objects — are not evidence of a history, but in fact its very living residue. These projects, all of which work to unravel foreclosed histories, often take the form of ad hoc archives and pay particular interest to women’s power, pleasure, labor, and self-actualization. Lately I’ve turned towards imagination, optimism, and joy as shared, necessary tools of the artist and the revolutionary.” —Carmen Winant (December 2020)

Content warning: please be advised that this exhibition contains adult content, including depictions and descriptions of domestic violence.

Knoxville Museum of Art, 1050 World's Fair Park, Knoxville, TN 37916. Hours: Tu-Sa 10-5, Su 1-5. Information: 865-525-6101, www.knoxart.org. Admission and parking are free.

Inspired by Women in Transition's "Clothesline Project", the YWCA worked with their clients to make their own t-shirts, which are on display in the 3rd floor lobby.

Knoxville Museum of Art, 1050 World's Fair Park, Knoxville, TN 37916. Hours: Tu-Sa 10-5, Su 1-5. Information: 865-525-6101, www.knoxart.org. Admission and parking are free.

PROJECT SPACE
special reception Jan. 19, 2024
https://tristararts.org/the-gallery/f/one-solitude-speaking

Tri-Star Arts at Candoro Marble Building, 4450 Candora Drive, Knoxville, TN 37920. Hours: Tu-Sa 11-5. Information: https://tristararts.org/visit

CLASS SCHEDULE 2024
January 14 - May 19 - Spring Semester classes
July 14 - Aug 18 - Summer Session classes
September 8 - November 24 - Fall Semester classes

OPEN LEVEL BALLET, Sundays, 1:00 – 2:30 PM
This ballet class is open to students of all levels of experience and ability. This class will be a comfortable pace for students with some experience in any form of dance. Warm-up exercises will prepare the class for a focus on center work like petit allegro, adagio, turns, and leaps.

OPEN-LEVEL MODERN, Sundays, 2:30 – 4:00 PM EST
This class is open to anyone interested in building their creative and technical capacity as a dancer. No previous experience in dance is required. Class will include a warm-up, modern dance technique exercises, across-the-floor movement, and a short combination.

OPEN-LEVEL IMPROVISATION, Sundays, 12:00-1:00 PM EST
Improvisation is the spontaneous creation of movement. When you hear a song you like and begin to move to it, you are improvising. This class is open to students of all levels. Improv class helps dancers explore their own personal movement vocabulary and learn to relate with other dancers in the form of free or structured improvisation exercises. This class will also teach important choreographic concepts such as dynamics, use of space, sampling, flocking, and more! Some light contact may be involved depending on vaccination status and student comfort.

Classes are held at the Tennessee Conservatory of Fine Arts, 2906 Tazewell Pike, #A, Knoxville, TN 37918.
https://www.circlemoderndance.com/

Scratchboards and more fine art by Judy Lavoie
Also featuring scratchboards by some of her students.
website: https://judylavoieart.com

Opening reception Jan 14, 2-4 PM

Rarity Bay Art Gallery, Community Activity Center, 150 Rarity Bay Pkwy, Vonore, TN

The McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture is excited to announce the special exhibition, Coming into View: Oil Paintings from the Permanent Collection. The exhibition will feature several artworks never before displayed to the public alongside pieces that have been the focus of recent research.

Aligned with the museum’s newly implemented strategic plan, this exhibition underscores the significance of the museum’s ongoing collaboration with students, the university, and external partners. Coming into View explores three key themes—student research, collaboration, and coursework—providing an insider’s perspective on the research efforts conducted behind the scenes on the museum’s permanent collection.

Featuring both beloved “fan favorites” and previously unseen works, the exhibition spotlights paintings central to coursework, internships, and student research projects at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Beyond a mere display of art, Coming into View demonstrates the integral role of students, faculty, and the campus community in deepening the museum’s understanding of its collections.

The exhibition also provides a peek behind the metaphorical museum curtain into the importance of conservation of the museum’s permanent collection. Learn more about the exhibition and stay up to date with exhibition-related programming by visiting https://tiny.utk.edu/ComingIntoView.

McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture, 1327 Circle Park Dr on the UT campus, Knoxville, TN 37996. Information: 865-974-2144. Hours: Tuesday through Saturday 9 a.m.–5 p.m. and Sunday 12–4 p.m. https://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu