Watercolor and acrylic. Folded paper and found objects. Digital prints and woodcuts.
Pellissippi State Community College’s newest art exhibit has a little something for everyone.
“The Indispensables,” on display until Oct. 22, features the work of Pellissippi State’s four adjunct visual art instructors: John Allen, Anna Halliwell Boyd, Marty Komorny and Tatiana Potts – their works, processes and investigations as varied as they are.
“The exhibition is a survey of our underrecognized colleagues’ talents and hard work and spans many mediums,” said Associate Professor Herb Rieth. “Drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, photography and printmaking are all explored here, often in thought-provoking and striking ways.”
- John Allen earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drawing from Clemson University in 2010 and his Master of Fine Arts from University of South Florida in 2014. His work spans various media including drawing, sculpture, photography and printmaking, and is often focused on process, especially aspects that are experimental, meditative or imaginative. His work on display at Pellissippi State includes “Case Studies I-IV,” silver gelatin pinhole prints in converted found objects such as old luggage.
- Anna Halliwell Boyd is a mixed-media artist who earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2D Studio Art from the University of Tennessee in 2008 and her Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2018. Her recent works explore themes of loss and how the past is recollected, with photographs she took growing up resurrected to convey lost connections with others and the distorted nature of memory. The original printed photographs are sanded, erased and painted on with the intent of creating separation between the figures and the viewer, just as they are now separated from the artist. Another installation redacts details from the artist’s old school notes, with the blank spaces she created in them serving as lapses in memory.
- A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Marty Komorny received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking from Southern Illinois University, as well as a Master of Arts in Philosophy. She spent a motivational year picking fruit in the great Northwest, living out of a blue van, before returning to school to study Printmaking at the University of Tennessee. She continues to garden and make drawings, watercolors and prints from her home in Maryville.
- Tatiana Potts is a native of Slovakia who received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking from the University of North Carolina, Asheville, and her Master of Fine Arts degree in Printmaking from the University of Tennessee. Potts incorporates images, artist books and paper installations into a world that reflects her experiences and perspectives living, traveling and studying in Europe and the United States. Images are printed with printmaking processes such as screen print, intaglio, relief and lithography and then folded piece by piece and composed into one installation with glue, magnets and Velcro.
“Like most programs and, indeed, the College as a whole, we would not function without our adjuncts teaching many of our classes,” Reith said. “They are not paid nearly enough, put in long hours and undergo rigorous training, and yet they often receive very little recognition for what they bring to the classroom: professionalism, caring and a high degree of skill and thought in their chosen field of research. We find them to be indispensable.”
“The Indispensables” is free and open to the public 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday until Oct. 22. The Bagwell Center for Media and Art Gallery is located on Pellissippi State’s Hardin Valley Campus, 10915 Hardin Valley Road, Knoxville.
Masks are encouraged in indoor spaces.
For more information about The Arts at Pellissippi State this season, go here or call 865-694-6400. To request accommodations for a disability at any campus event, call 865-539-7401 or email.
Lesli Bales-Sherrod does marketing and writing for Pellissippi State Community College.