Acclaimed artist Nall Hollis brings Alabama Art to Visual Arts Gallery

Release Date: 12/16/2002. Expired: 2/28/2003

Alabama native Nall Hollis promotes art from his home state all over the world. The internationally acclaimed artist will bring his Alabama Art exhibit to the Visual Arts Gallery of The Renaissance Center in Dickson Jan. 13-Feb. 28.

The Visual Arts Gallery is open 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday and admission is free. A reception to celebrate the opening of the exhibit will be 6-9 p.m. Jan. 17.

Hollis’ own art has been exhibited all over the world and he created the Nature Art and Life League (NALL) Art Association on a nine-acre estate in Vence, France, where there are 10 workshops for artists and a museum designed and built by Hollis. Every summer he sponsors five Alabama art college students at his France estate where they spend time working with him. He is remodeling two buildings in downtown Huntsville where he plans to bring French art students as an exchange of the arts.

Born in Troy, Ala., and raised in Arab, Hollis maintains a home in Huntsville as well as estates in Vence and Monaco.

In 2000, he organized the Alabama Art exhibit, which highlights 13 artists from Alabama with different areas of expertise. Mediums for the exhibit range from photography to sculpture to folk quilts.

“Participating artists were selected because their techniques, work ethic and sensitivity to human sentiments represent all aspects of Alabama’s art,” said Hollis. “We will present Alabama from its roots to its leaves. This collection merges the works of self-taught artists with those of trained artists, photographers and sculptors to create a unique slice of life in Alabama.”

“We are very excited to be bringing Nall’s Alabama Art exhibit to The Renaissance Center,” said Curtis Southerland, curator of the Visual Arts Gallery. “Since its opening in Montgomery in April 2000, Alabama Art has taken the talents of artists from our southern neighbor around the globe, including a show at Nall’s gallery in France.”

For the past two years, Hollis has been creating portraits of each of the artists included in the exhibit. Those portraits will be displayed along with the artists’ works and then the portraits will remain on display in The Renaissance Center’s east wing March 1-22 following the Alabama Art exhibit.

“These collage style portraits of the artists uniquely represent the personality and history of those individuals portrayed,” said Southerland. “The portraits are themselves a captivating exhibit.”

Hollis has degrees in Art, Political Science and Psychology from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. In 1971, he left to study in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and his tutelage under the great painter Salvador Dali can be seen in Hollis’ strange, restless works. Hollis has traveled the world in his search of artistic expression, living in Beirut, North Africa, Nice, India and Mexico.

At least eight books have been written about or by Hollis. In 1996, the book NALL Technique and Symbol written by Alain Renner, director of Sotheby’s Monte-Carlo and Paris, was published.

“I believe the Alabama Art exhibit will be one of the most exciting and unique shows we have hosted in the Visual Arts Gallery and it is only more exciting to have the opportunity to include Nall’s own works through his portraits of the artists,” said Southerland.

For more information on the Alabama Art exhibit at The Renaissance Center, call (615)740-5600. The Renaissance Center is an arts and technology education 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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