News Flash

Home

Posted on: May 31, 2023

Gadsden Museum of Art announces June 2023 exhibitions

Embodied: contemporary takes on the dress

The Gadsden Museum of Art will host all new exhibitions featuring 15 artists throughout June with an opening reception on Friday, June 2 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

"Embodied: Contemporary Takes on the Dress" is a collaborative exhibition of thirteen artists: Merrilee Challiss, Leanna Leithauser Lesley, Alvina Zendejas, Montes Hill, Tara Stallworth Lee, Michelle Reynolds, Tracie Noles-Ross, Cynthia Wagner, Erin London, Katie D'Arienzo, Chiharu Roach, Amanda Banks, Kimberly Hart, and Sarah Jane Shaw. 

Each dress is a visual narrative stemming from observation and experience, creating an immersive study into individuality, semiotics, joy, sorrow, and humanity.

Convulsive Motion

Kentucky artist Brandon Smith will be showing on the second floor. In Mary Shelley’s "Frankenstein," when the monster stirs to life for the first time, the book says there is a “convulsive motion” in the limbs. The limbs hang and dangle. Lines describe what is there and what is not there. The carved dark shapes, the backs of hands and elbows are solidly described against a field of smoky neutral pale light. The lines arc toward the lurching bodies to lift or impede the weight. 

Figures are composed of mismatched proportions, hewn at the joints with fragile red lines. Identity is obscured in thickets of opaque dark masses. In the vague expressive dust of soot and pigment rests forms uneasy in their shape, ungainly and uncomfortable. The blue washes over them, or suspends them in time. They sit, they yell in puddles of pink, wade through streams of viscous red, and troweled on blacks and brown. 

Trapped in vague spaces of strokes and marks they reach, wobble and try to stand. They are dark and emotional, sentimental even and sometimes wretched in their form. They pay homage to the truth but only fleetingly and uneven. In the spaces between truth and visual chaos, they are both beautiful and grotesque.

Natural Selections

In the Leo Reynolds Gallery, painter Wanda Sullivan presents her collection of kaleidoscopic floral paintings entitled “Natural Selections.” Wanda uses measured symmetry, and recently, deconstructed layers of  computer-assisted designs with painterly, atmospheric layers of paint. She revels in color, undulating form and alluring textures. 

“My flowers are beautiful, but they are monsters, contemporary, biomorphic Frankensteins,” she said. They are designed to seduce the viewer and lure them in, just like our dependency on fossil fuels, phones, tablets, and computers do. 

Jacksonville State University Ceramics Professor John Oles’ work can be seen in the Courtyard Galleries.  In his vessels and functional forms, he honors the tradition and familiarity of the domestic object, with its ability to enrich our lives through daily use, as a vehicle for communicating content. He approaches the making of each pot as an individual sculptural object, often with reference to landscape or the human figure. 

The walls of these vessels are like that of a membrane, inflated, stretching thin, just barely able to contain the space within it. And on that skin is a mark. A finger swipe, a pinch, push- out, a gesture instantly records history, intent and expression onto the surface, while simultaneously building a tension with the interior volume.


Facebook Twitter Email

Other News in Home

No Burn Order

Gov. Ivey prohibits burning statewide

Posted on: November 8, 2023
Amnesty 2023 - Gadsden Municipal Court

Amnesty Court Day 2023 set for March 22

Posted on: February 13, 2023
Downtown Gadsden First Friday

First Friday returns for 2022

Posted on: March 25, 2022
Landfill closure 9-15-21

Landfill closure - September 15, 2021

Posted on: September 15, 2021

Landfill closure - March 26, 2021

Posted on: March 26, 2021
City Seal 1

City Hall to reopen Monday, Feb. 15, 2021

Posted on: February 11, 2021

Planning Commission meeting canceled

Posted on: December 15, 2020
botanical-30

Botanical Gardens Ribbon Cutting

Posted on: October 2, 2020
Flu Shot Clinic

Annual Drive-Thru Flu Vaccination Clinic

Posted on: September 29, 2020

Hurricane Response

Posted on: September 28, 2020

Special Called Council Meeting - 9-29-20

Posted on: September 25, 2020

Airport Authority meeting - 9-18-20

Posted on: September 14, 2020

COVID-19 Hot Spot Testing Scheduled

Posted on: August 11, 2020

Special Called City Council Meeting

Posted on: July 21, 2020

Community Meeting - District 5

Posted on: May 15, 2020

City Hall to Reopen Monday

Posted on: May 8, 2020

District 2 Community Meeting

Posted on: May 7, 2020
COVID_Spotlight2 copy

UPDATED Stay at Home Order

Posted on: April 11, 2020

District 3 - Community Meeting

Posted on: May 4, 2020
EMA logo

Severe Weather Affects Etowah County

Posted on: April 13, 2020
EMA logo

Etowah County COVID 19 Fatality

Posted on: April 1, 2020
COVID_Spotlight_biz

COVID-19 Local Businesses Resources

Posted on: March 24, 2020

COVID-19: City of Gadsden Response

Posted on: March 18, 2020

RAM Free Clinic Postponed in Gadsden

Posted on: March 17, 2020

District 3 Community Meeting

Posted on: March 2, 2020
Downtown Gadsden Logo

Downtown Gadsden Gives Back

Posted on: February 24, 2020

District 5 Community Meeting

Posted on: February 21, 2020
Highland Avenue Road Closure

Highland Avenue Closure for Road Work

Posted on: February 14, 2020

Airport Authority meeting - 2-21-20

Posted on: February 14, 2020

GECEMA: Overnight Flooding Likely

Posted on: February 10, 2020
Downtown Gadsden Logo

Downtown Gadsden Girl’s Night Out

Posted on: February 10, 2020

No City Council meeting - 2-11-20

Posted on: February 4, 2020

County Impacted by Severe Storms

Posted on: January 13, 2020
Flooding Icon

Risk of Flooding in Etowah County

Posted on: January 2, 2020
DowntownGadsden_A80U1872

Downtown Gadsden Shopping Event

Posted on: September 6, 2019

Public Works Committee Meeting

Posted on: December 31, 2018
download

City-wide Christmas Tree Lighting

Posted on: November 19, 2018

District 1 Community Meeting

Posted on: January 19, 2018

Weekend Warming Center

Posted on: January 11, 2018