Calendar of Events

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present six new exhibitions at the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville opening on Friday, September 6, from 5:00-9:00 PM. As part of a special First Friday Block Party sponsored by the Alliance and City of Knoxville, the free gathering with exhibiting artists will also feature nearly 20 artist vendors and live music with Fountain City Ramblers along the 100 Block of Gay Street, which will be open to pedestrians only from 4-10 PM between Jackson and Vine avenues.

Based on seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish still life paintings, I took inspiration to update my artistic process by studying the past through the sub-genre of vanitas and memento mori paintings. Vanitas is a still life artwork which includes various symbolic objects designed to remind the viewer of their mortality and of the worthlessness of worldly goods and pleasures. A memento mori is an artwork designed to remind the viewer of their mortality and of the shortness and fragility of human life. Every aspect of the picture has symbolism and language, some evident and common, some obscure. These pictures are all studio still life setups, photographed digitally. The permanence of our ideas and identities, whether in art or in life, are a vanity of mind.

David Gorley is an East Tennessee artist with a BFA in Fine Arts from East Tennessee State University. He challenges himself to explore photography’s various techniques and styles to create cohesive, succinct showings of bodies of work. He has used various formats of film and digital cameras over the years. He loves to remind viewers of our rich history of art and how a particular genre in a particular time period can still be relevant to expand upon today. His work has shown throughout East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. www.davidgorley.com

The Emporium Center is located at 100 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Gallery hours are M-F 9-5 and Sat 10-1. For more information, please see www.knoxalliance.com or call (865) 523-7543.

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present six new exhibitions at the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville opening on Friday, September 6, from 5:00-9:00 PM. As part of a special First Friday Block Party sponsored by the Alliance and City of Knoxville, the free gathering with exhibiting artists will also feature nearly 20 artist vendors and live music with Fountain City Ramblers along the 100 Block of Gay Street, which will be open to pedestrians only from 4-10 PM between Jackson and Vine avenues.

This new collection of ceramic mosaics features geoscience investigations and discoveries in a broader context to enhance scientific understanding about natural processes among the public. In this exhibition, Anna Szynkiewicz presents artistic visualizations of geological settings investigated by the Curiosity, Spirit and Opportunity rovers on Mars as well as emphasizes the significance of clay use through time for water transport and purification. She has included mosaics made with help of University of Tennessee students who used imagination to express their knowledge gained in various Geoscience courses. The ceramic mosaics feature a variety of exciting career opportunities offered by Geoscience, including environmental, geology, water, and planetary fields.

Anna Szynkiewicz is an associate professor of geoscience in Earth & Planetary Sciences Department, University of Tennessee. She teaches geology and environmental science courses and conducts geochemical research in volcanic and desert areas on Earth that are believed to be analogous to the planet Mars. She is also a member of Mighty Mud, where she makes ceramic Martian rovers and mosaics featuring scientific topics taught in her classes and researched with her students.

The Emporium Center is located at 100 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Gallery hours are M-F 9-5 and Sat 10-1. For more information, please see www.knoxalliance.com or call (865) 523-7543.

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present six new exhibitions at the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville opening on Friday, September 6, from 5:00-9:00 PM. As part of a special First Friday Block Party sponsored by the Alliance and City of Knoxville, the free gathering with exhibiting artists will also feature nearly 20 artist vendors and live music with Fountain City Ramblers along the 100 Block of Gay Street, which will be open to pedestrians only from 4-10 PM between Jackson and Vine avenues.

Where I Am is a series of etchings and linocuts created in Kyiv, Ukraine during the summer of 2022. This period marked the time immediately after the initial shock of Russia's unprovoked and unjust full-scale invasion of Ukraine had passed, allowing for the first meaningful reflections to emerge. During this time, millions of Ukrainians sought refuge abroad, grappling with the loss of their homeland. The artists behind the Where I Am project are members of the Antresola Art Studio, which has been active for over a decade at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine. This studio fosters collaboration between younger and older generations of artists, including Ігор Цикура (Ihor Tsykura) and Інна Любич (Inna Liubych), who created pieces for the exhibit. The entire series was created for charity, with all proceeds from the sale of the artworks going toward providing medical equipment for the Ukrainian service members, facilitated through the Ukrainian charitable organization UA First Aid. Where I Am has previously exhibited in Kyiv, Ukraine; Tallinn, Estonia; and Athens, Ohio (USA). This local exhibition is presented by koloHUB, a Knoxville-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to helping and improving the lives of war-impacted people and animals in Ukraine.

Home as a phenomenon, as a concrete object, is blurred in the twilight of the uncertain modern world. The tragic experience that millions of Ukrainians are currently experiencing prompts them to search for a new meaning of the very concept of “my home.” The project Where I Am is an attempt to capture fragments of semantic constructions (or delusions? or desperate dreams?) that, as a result of pressure from the savage and arrogant bureaucratic worlds, have not yet been able to form something coherent. The work of creating a new, comprehensible picture of the world from these elements is difficult and long, but it cannot be avoided.

Ігор Цикура (Ihor Tsykura) was born in the Donetsk region in 1965. He grew up in the southern part of the Kherson region and moved to Kyiv in the mid-90s as a “free artist.” Since 2001, he has been the head of the Antresola Art Studio: https://www.facebook.com/igor.tsikura. Інна Любич (Inna Liubych) was born in the Vinnytsia region in 1991. She studied in Kyiv, where she currently resides and works as a psychologist at the Center for Mental Health at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Liubych is the author of the painting project "Alexithymia of Space" (2019) and the co-author of the graphic projects "Where Am I?" (2023) and "Mystical Space" (2023): https://www.facebook.com/innoms

Instagram @whereiamukraine
www.koloHUB.com
https://uafirstaid.com/en/

The Emporium Center is located at 100 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Gallery hours are M-F 9-5 and Sat 10-1. For more information, please see www.knoxalliance.com or call (865) 523-7543.

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present six new exhibitions at the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville opening on Friday, September 6, from 5:00-9:00 PM. As part of a special First Friday Block Party sponsored by the Alliance and City of Knoxville, the free gathering with exhibiting artists will also feature nearly 20 artist vendors and live music with Fountain City Ramblers along the 100 Block of Gay Street, which will be open to pedestrians only from 4-10 PM between Jackson and Vine avenues.

Charles McTyere Parker III: Attention Deficit: collected works 2021-2024
Attention Deficit highlights the artist’s working process where projects move in multiple directions as focus abruptly shifts and works remain ever in flux. Over varied subject matter, cohesiveness develops through experimentation with a wide range of materials and found objects. Themes of isolation, anxiety, memory, death, decay and self-assessment merge with surreal and abstracted formal concepts like windows, doors and landscapes, providing an introspective dreamlike experience for the viewer. This exhibition is dedicated to the artist’s son, Jude, and the memory of his own father, Charles McTyere Parker, Jr. “Charlie” (1942 - 2023).

Charles McTyere Parker III, born in 1982, is a Memphis native now living and working in Knoxville for the past two years. A self-taught artist, with his only formal training being as an actor (performing on stage and in independent film productions), he has incorporated artmaking by hand to expand his creative output. Working with several medium, including paint, film photography, collage, found objects and repurposed materials, Parker’s work serves as a means of conveyance and documentation of his place in the world.

The Emporium Center is located at 100 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Gallery hours are M-F 9-5 and Sat 10-1. For more information, please see www.knoxalliance.com or call (865) 523-7543.

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present six new exhibitions at the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville opening on Friday, September 6, from 5:00-9:00 PM. As part of a special First Friday Block Party sponsored by the Alliance and City of Knoxville, the free gathering with exhibiting artists will also feature nearly 20 artist vendors and live music with Fountain City Ramblers along the 100 Block of Gay Street, which will be open to pedestrians only from 4-10 PM between Jackson and Vine avenues.

Of Earth and Air features original mushroom spore prints which begin as photographs and subsequently enlarged to produce limited edition, pigment ink prints on archival paper. Tiny organisms living in the mushrooms are collaborators whose tracks and other marks are gladly included. None of the images are AI- or computer-generated. These works are highly experimental and based on encounters with found and foraged materials in the natural world and from the detritus of human life.

Husband and wife George Pfeffer and Linda Goodwin own the gallery, Dryad Naiad Studio, named for the spirits of the woods and water that inspire them. They live, work, garden, and play with nearly anything on the banks of the South Toe River at the base of the Black Mountains, near Burnsville, North Carolina. Their work has been accepted for juried exhibits in North Caroline, Georgia, Brooklyn, NY, and Tennessee. Linda Goodwin studied drawing and sculpture in college, including figurative bronze sculpture under Paul Granlund in Minnesota. She has experimented with plants, color, and natural materials since childhood. George Pfeffer has drawn and created pop-up cards for many years. His background in science and love of the outdoors led to experimentation with a wide variety of found materials, both as a solo artist and in collaboration with his wife.

www.dryadnaiad.com
Instagram @dryadnaiad

The Emporium Center is located at 100 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Gallery hours are M-F 9-5 and Sat 10-1. For more information, please see www.knoxalliance.com or call (865) 523-7543.

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present six new exhibitions at the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville opening on Friday, September 6, from 5:00-9:00 PM. As part of a special First Friday Block Party sponsored by the Alliance and City of Knoxville, the free gathering with exhibiting artists will also feature nearly 20 artist vendors and live music with Fountain City Ramblers along the 100 Block of Gay Street, which will be open to pedestrians only from 4-10 PM between Jackson and Vine avenues.

Nick Ferruso uses his canvas to capture an intimate moment in nature. His paintings are unique slices of time: rejuvenating, uplifting and personal. Most feature familiar nature scenes from in and around Knoxville that viewers will find recognizable. From afar, their realism fools the eye, so much so they could be mistaken for photographs. But up close, the paintings become effectively abstract with colored splotches and overlapping palette knife work that is messy and even a bit chaotic. Engagement with the paintings from both distances is a part of the discovery viewers make for each scene.

Nick Ferruso was born and raised in Vienna, West Virginia, where the natural landscape lives up to the state motto of "Wild and Wonderful". The youngest of four children, he always loved drawing and painting, and after high school attended Colombus College of Art and Design. Although his first love was fine art, he pursued a BFA in Advertising and Graphic Design and spent the next 20 years as a Graphic Designer, working in New York City, Saint Petersburg, Florida, and finally settling in Knoxville to work for the former Scripps Networks. There he met and married his wife Anna, became a father of two boys, and made it through one company merger, only to be laid off after ten years with the company. This forced career shift presented an opportunity, and with encouragement from his wife, he decided that instead of pursuing another design job, he would, for the first time in his life, officially shift his focus to painting. He has since begun a reawakening of his creative self and is showing his two young children that art is a gift and it is worth pursuing.

Instagram @nickferruso
www.ferrusos.com

The Emporium Center is located at 100 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Gallery hours are M-F 9-5 and Sat 10-1. For more information, please see www.knoxalliance.com or call (865) 523-7543.

Marcia Goldenstein and Tom Riesing are showcasing new work in their exhibit, Shared Spaces, at RED GALLERY from September 6-28. Both artists have a rich history of teaching at the University of Tennessee School of Art, with Tom also serving as the director at Ball State University. Their work has been exhibited and recognized nationally and internationally. The exhibit features Goldenstein's map-inspired pieces and Riesing's recent monoprints, created during his residency at Constellation Studio in Lincoln, Nebraska.

5 PM—9 PM opening Fri Sep 6
RED Gallery, 130 W. Jackson Ave, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-524-0146 or https://www.facebook.com/REDgalleryKNOX/

BY LAUREN GUNDERSON
Directed by Courtney Woolard

Four beautiful, badass women lose their heads in this irreverent, girl-powered comedy set during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror. Playwright Olympe de Gouges, assassin Charlotte Corday, former queen (and fan of ribbons) Marie Antoinette, and Haitian rebel Marianne Angelle hang out, murder Marat, and try to beat back the extremist insanity in 1793 Paris.

This grand and dream-tweaked comedy is about violence and legacy, art and activism, feminism and terrorism, compatriots and chosen sisters, and how we actually go about changing the world. It’s a true story. Or total fiction. Or a play about a play. Or a raucous resurrection…that ends in a song and a scaffold.

Performances are Thu-Sat 7:30 PM and Sun 3 PM

Theatre Knoxville Downtown, 800 S. Central Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information & tickets: 865-544-1999, www.theatreknoxville.com

KNOXVILLE
BOOK BY FRANK GALATI
MUSIC BY STEPHEN FLAHERTY
LYRICS BY LYNN AHRENS
BASED ON THE NOVEL 'A DEATH IN THE FAMILY' BY JAMES AGEE
BASED, IN PART, ON THE PLAY 'ALL THE WAY HOME' BY TAD MOSEL

Based on James Agee’s autobiographical, Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece 'A Death in the Family', this moving and innovative new musical reunites the dynamic Tony Award®-winning creative team behind 'Ragtime'. The story begins as an adult Agee struggles to write his greatest work about the event that touched his young life and the effect it had on his family and his future. An evocative depiction of loss and grief and the forces that shape who we are, 'Knoxville' is a universal coming-of-age story about family, faith, and love—and about the boy who will grow up to write it. With a sweeping musical score and brilliant cast, this is a must-see event.

Clarence Brown Theatre, 1714 Andy Holt Ave on the UT campus, Knoxville, TN 37996. For information/tickets: 865-974-5161, www.clarencebrowntheatre.com

MAIN GALLERY
reception Sep. 6, 2024

A two-person show, You (Understood), featuring recent works by artists Angie To (Chattanooga, TN) and Christina Renfer Vogel (Chattanooga, TN) opens Tuesday, September 3 and will run through Wednesday, October 23, 2024. Curator: Brian R. Jobe.

https://www.christinarenfervogel.com/
https://www.angelatoart.com/

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

PROJECT SPACE
reception Sep. 6, 2024

Tri-Star Arts is also pleased to present the next exhibition in their Golden Chain Gallery project space located at the historic Candoro Marble Building. Impasse by Kelly Hider (Knoxville, TN) opens Tuesday, September 3 and will run through Wednesday, October 23, 2024. This show is located within the unique architectural space of a narrow wooden stairwell.

https://kellyhider.com/

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

FIRST FRIDAYS | SEPTEMBER 6, OCTOBER 4, 5-9PM

Lore: What We Were Told | What We Saw | What We Tell Ourselves is the sophomore portfolio from Black Women of Print. With Lore, contributing artists continue to expand on personal, familial, spiritual, and creative legacies. The prints are a collection of emic narratives created by active founding members and Cohort II members — LaToya Hobbs, Karen J. Revis, Deborah Grayson, Althea Murphy-Price, Stephanie Santana, and Tanekeya Word.

Lore was curated by Tanekeya Word, founder of Black Women of Print.

UT Downtown Gallery, 106 S. Gay Street. Hours: W-F: 11am - 6pm, Sat: 10am - 3p. For more information: ewing@utk.edu | https://downtown.utk.edu