Renaissance Center’s 1st Graduate Exhibition features works by Jaime Raybin

Release Date: 9/6/2007. Expired: 10/20/2007

The Renaissance Center launches a new annual exhibit that will feature a recent graduate from an area arts school in a solo exhibition in the center’s galleries.

The center’s 1st Graduate Exhibition will display works by Nashville artist Jaime Raybin in the North Wing Gallery Sept. 5-Oct. 20. An opening reception will be 6-7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 7.

“Each year across the state of Tennessee, universities send graduates out into the world from their respective art programs. These former students come with credentials of either B.A. or B.F.A. degrees in their respective fields of interest and blossoming expertise,” said Armon Means, curator at The Renaissance Center. “Whether they are painters, photographers, sculptors or new media practitioners, these young artists all have one thing in common – they seek to expose the world to their art.”

Jaime Raybin is one of those artists. This May, Jaime graduated from Watkins College of Art in Nashville with a B.F.A. in Fine Arts. Her thesis show manifested itself as a story in paintings about her infatuation with an allegorical pink stegosaurus that symbolized an impossible ideal. This body of work is lush with color and playful images allowing the viewer to access it, while simultaneously addressing more complex issues within its subtext.

Raybin has been featured in numerous juried exhibitions across the region and won Best in Show at a juried exhibition at the Customs House Museum in Clarksville and second place in an exhibition in Todd Gallery at Middle Tennessee State University

Her new work titled Milk Shelf deals with growing up in a world not geared toward youth culture.

“The adult world was structured towards people who had money to spend, or at least could get into 18+ venues,” Raybin says. “Besides being young, my friends and I had outsider social identities: we dressed loudly and were maybe a little obnoxious. We were constantly being told ‘buy something or leave.’

“The few public places we felt welcome held special meaning. Mostly these were coffeehouses, or neglected diners. Milk Shelf is an imaginary hangout spot that represents the social climate of my adolescence; a rare space away from parents or school where my friends and I felt that we could be ourselves. Some of the paintings depict a place that is poorly maintained but has a distinct character to it, other paintings are more polished and overtly retro, with the ‘Milk Shelf’ brand identity placed conspicuously. This is also about how places that are initially underground often end up becoming a commercialized version of their former selves.”

This simple idea of engaging the viewer yet still allowing the artist to express his individual concern and/or expression is one that many use, just as the thesis exhibition is a showing opportunity available to many graduates across the country.

Raybin is a member of Off The Wall, a six-member Nashville artist group that holds quarterly shows in which each member displays a body of work. She also was on the curatorial board for The Secret Show Series, a Nashville-based collective dedicated to displaying in alternative spaces.

Her works have been included in exhibitions at Dangenart Gallery, University School of Nashville, Marathon Village, Cannery Ballroom, The Plowhaus, San Jose Museum of Art and others. She served on the College Advisory Panel for the Frist Center for Visual Arts 2005-06.

The Renaissance Center is pleased to begin a new tradition within its walls, one of giving an annual exhibition opportunity to a deserving graduate from within the state.

“There are many young emerging artists across Tennessee looking to gain professional showing experience to give one that opportunity possibly helps to ensure that there will be one more working artist to carry on the fine tradition of art growing out of the mid-state,” said Means.

For more information on the exhibition of works by Jaime Raybin or The Renaissance Center’s new annual Graduate Exhibition, contact Means at (615) 740-5545 or armon.means@rcenter.org, or visit the center’s website at www.rcenter.org. Galleries at The Renaissance Center are open 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday and admission and receptions are always free.

The Renaissance Center is a fine arts education and performing arts center at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.

Visit the Visual Arts Gallery page for more about the gallery.

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