Visual Arts Gallery to feature works by FHU Professor Kenny Jones
Release Date: 3/12/2004. Expired: 4/30/2004
Kenny Jones has won the Judge’s Choice Award at the last two Renaissance Regional Art Exhibits at The Renaissance Center in Dickson. Now the Visual Arts Gallery will host a solo exhibit of Jones’ sculptures March 20-April 30. See/Saw: Peripherals to Blindspots will feature contemporary works and installations created by Jones.
An opening reception featuring the artist will be 5-7 p.m. March 20.
Jones is an assistant professor of Art at Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tenn., where he also is director of the Visual Art Program and curator of the FHU Art Gallery. He received his Master of Fine Arts degree in Painting and Sculpture from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas.
“I see my job as a mirror maker... a ground where an examination of when and where we are can take place,” Jones said.
Jones received the Judge’s Choice Award from jurists Susan W. Knowles and Sergei Shillabeer in the 2002 Renaissance Regional Art Exhibit for his concrete sculpture titled Pronouns Against Pronouns. The sculpture gave the appearance of both a shrine and a warhead to represent religion’s relationship to war, Jones explained.
He received the Judge’s Choice Award for the 2003 Renaissance Regional Art Exhibit from jurist Terry Thacker for his three-dimensional work titled Sounds Falling Outside of Speech. The piece included ceramic, plaster and felt components as well as a recording of sounds Jones made using his mouth without using his vocal cords.
In each exhibit, Jones’ pieces were chosen for the top award from more than 375 entries from artists in 12 southeastern states.
Jones also won the Best of Sculpture Award at the 2002, 2001 and 1998 Memphis Arts in the Park juried exhibits. He has participated in numerous other juried shows as well as presenting many solo exhibits throughout the country.
Jones says his art comes from ideas that he traces back to early memories of doctors and hospitals when as a child he received a model of the human heart.
“As you can imagine, that made quite an impression on a two-year-old boy,” Jones says. “Isn’t it amazing how fragile we are, yet, at the same time we possess great complexity and potential.”
Jones hopes that a merging of art and science comes through in his work.
“Both artists and scientists strive to form layers of how we look at the world - in effect recasting the act of perception while swimming through its multifaceted nature,” Jones says. “The mental state of synesthesia has always interested me since we always know a thing better by looking at it from as many angles as possible.”
Synesthesia is the crossover of the senses, such as the sensation of hearing colors, as in the phrase “that’s a loud color.”
“This recent body of works ventures into the artist’s physical rendition and interaction of the non-tangible quality of the human senses,” said Curtis Southerland, curator of the Visual Arts Gallery. “These contemporary works are sure to stimulate interest by all viewers. He is inviting the viewer to see the blind spots of our seeing, to touch the peripheral vision.”
The Visual Arts Gallery is open 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday and admission is free. The public is invited to meet Jones and view See/Saw: Peripherals to Blindspots at the March 20 reception, which also is free.
For more information on the Visual Arts Gallery or the Kenny Jones exhibit, call Southerland at (615)740-5519.
The Renaissance Center is an arts and technology education and performing arts center at 855 Highway 46 South, 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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