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OXFORD, Miss. – The 2008 University of Mississippi Printmakers, a group
of six recent art department graduates, presents selections of their
work this week at the Memphis College of Art.
The show, “Oh Lord, Won’t You Send me a Sign,” is displayed in MCA’s
“on the street” gallery at 388 South Main St. in Memphis. The exhibit
is available for free viewing 4-9 p.m. Thursday and Friday (July 24 and
25) and noon-5 p.m. Saturday.
An opening reception is scheduled for 6-9 p.m. Friday in conjunction
with Memphis’ Trolley Night, during which other area galleries are open
and trolley rides are free.
The exhibit features about 30 pieces from 2008 B.F.A. graduates Dabbs Anderson, Len Clark and Tyler Morgan, as well as the work of 2008 M.F.A. graduates Micah Craven, Melissa Lee and Vitus Shell.
“It’s not often that you see so many printmakers grouped together in an exhibition,” said the show’s curator, Sheri Fleck Rieth, UM chair and associate professor of art. “Because all the work is so different, you have a really good sampling.”
The exhibit features a collection of Anderson’s work derived from haikus and made of everything from chicken bones to bubble gum, as well as Morgan’s interpretation of “the price of femininity,” which pairs ribbons with screws and metals to create dress-like pieces, Rieth said. Shell’s featured pieces are foam relief prints depicting the “African-American experience,” while Clark’s work is based on comic book and graphic novel styles, Rieth said.
Craven’s monotypes portray thin, dark figures with an undertone of hope in his prints, and Lee creates prints using wooden and glass plates that have been damaged with hammers and shotguns “to make my prints look so beautiful and approachable that one forgets that these prints come from a place of hurt or malice,” according to the curator’s statement.
The name of the show, borrowed from lyrics of an Arcade Fire song, addresses a thought Rieth said she has had many times.
“We wonder if what we do is making any kind of difference,” she said. “If we teach, we look at those faces every semester on the first day of classes and hope that something we do will give them some information or assistance that will make what they do have some meaning.”
Rieth said she listened to the song’s lyrics, which ask “Lord won’t you send me a sign, ’cause I just gotta know if I’m wastin’ my time,” many times during spring semester, and it inspired the show.
“Six of my printmaking students would be graduating,” she said in the statement. “They were all so very gifted, so good. Whether I had anything to do with what they had accomplished during their time with me or not, it was a sign that I was not wasting my time. They gave me such a precious gift, and so this show was conceived to share this gift with you.”
Rieth, who earned her master’s of fine arts degree from the Memphis College of Art and taught there from 1995 to 1998, said she is thankful for the opportunity to display the exhibit in Memphis.
“We have really strong ties with the Memphis College of Art and the university here, and I think it’s a nice thing to keep those ties in place,” she said.
The students have already shown their work on the Ole Miss campus as part of their graduation requirements.
For more information about the UM art department, visit http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/art .