Gary Monroe and Denise Stewart-Sanabria: Tableau Vivant
March 6 – May 29, 2020
Gary Monroe and Denise Stewart-Sanabria: Tableau Vivant
Opening reception: Friday, March 6, 5:00-9:00 PM
Bio:
Gary Monroe, an artist that resides in Knoxville, TN has been exhibiting extensively though out the US since the early 1980s. Predominately a representational artist he often includes non-representational elements in the work. The subject matter tends to be subjects from his native state of Tennessee such as Appalachian serpent handlers, Moon-shiners and of course Elvis Presley. Monroe’s work is held in numerous private and museum collections. He was most currently exhibited in Appalachia Now! An Interdisciplinary Survey of Contemporary Art in Southern Appalachia at the newly renovated Asheville Art Museum. In Monroe’s joint exhibit with Denise Stewart-Sanabria, Tableau Vivant; he will provide work from three series, The Serpent Handler Group, The Velvis Group and Comedy County Cocke. For more information, visit www.garymonroe.org.
Statement:
Many may view Tennessee as being famous for Elvis Presley, Country Music, the Great Smokey Mountains, Moonshine and Moon-pies. Tennessee is or has been home to Graceland, Liberty-land, Opry-land, Dollywood, Rock City, Twitty City and Buford Pusser’s Museum of Justice. From this information, many may consider my home state an “apocryphal locale”. This is an actuality, a locale were Southern and Appalachian culture collide with kitsch and popular culture. These qualities are what inform my artwork.
Bio:
Denise Stewart-Sanabria was born in Massachusetts and received her BFA in Painting from the University of Massachusetts/Amherst. She has lived in Knoxville, TN since 1986.
Sanabria paints both hyper-realist “portraits” of everything from produce to subversive jelly donuts. The anthropomorphic narratives often are reflections on human behavior. She is also known for her life size charcoal portrait drawings on plywood, which are cut out, mounted on wood bases, and staged in conceptual installations. She is a recipient of the 2019 Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant for her work on wood.
Recent group and solo exhibits include: “Drawing Discourse”, S. Tucker Cooke Gallery, University of North Carolina, “Virtual Reality” John P. Weatherhead Gallery, University of Saint Francis, Fort Wayne, IN, “Feast Your Eyes: Celebrating the Food of the South”, Franklin G. Burroughs-Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum, Myrtle Beach, SC, the “36th Bradley International Print and Drawing Exhibition”, Bradley University, Peoria, Ill, “28th National Drawing & Print Exhibition”, Gormley Gallery, Notre Dame of Maryland University, Baltimore, MD, Nashville, TN, and “Quantum Continuum” Rebecca Randall Bryan Gallery, Coastal Carolina University, Conway, SC, “Encounters”, at the Huntsville Museum of Art in Huntsville Alabama, Off Menu: Contemporary Art About Food: Bedford Gallery at the Lesher Center for Contemporary Arts, Walnut Creek, CA, and “Coined in the South” at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC.
Her work is included in various museums, private, and corporate collections including: The Tennessee State Museum, The Evansville Museum of Art in Indiana, The Knoxville Museum of Art, Huntsville Museum of Art, Notre Dame of Maryland University, Firstbank TN, Pinnacle Banks, Omni and Opryland Hotels, Scripps Networks, Knoxville Botanical Gardens, Jewelry Television, TriStar Energy, the Aslan Foundation, and the corporate offices of McGhee Tyson Airport.
She is represented by The Arts Company in Nashville, TN, Mitchell Hill in Charleston, SC, And District Arts in Fredrick, MD. For more information, visit https://stewartsanabri.wpengine.com/ or follow her on Instagram @denisestewartsanabria_.
Statement:
Plywood Drawings
These works are part of a series concentrating on the large-scale representation of contemporary people. Humans give off subtle clues as to the culture and social groupings they inhabit. Most of my reference material comes from observing people at art receptions. The virtual reality concept I focus on is intensified when they are returned, as drawings, to the
environment they were found in.
When a group of humans inhabit a space they observe certain territorial rules that govern where they are and what direction they are moving in relation to where others are located. They form predictable geometric patterns that are replicated in everything from the herding and flocking behaviors of other species, to wild seed and plant scatterings, to even star and constellation patterns.
I prefer to use the medium of drawing with charcoal on large sheets of plywood in order to take advantage of graphic monochromatic impact. Its directness lets me concentrate on the human presence of my subjects. I am also able to transform them into three-dimensional inter-related groupings and conceptual dramas by cutting them out with a scroll saw and using wood base locks to make them free standing.
Contemporary Altars of Misappropriated Mythology
Where does mythology originate? Who gets to define and invent it? How much of our older Western Mythology is relevant now, and how would it be updated?
I’m using Byzantine decoration, Faberge egg bling, medieval religious altar construction, and 21st century design standards to create secular cultural altars dedicated to who we are and what we value and obsess about. The Oscars are more about dresses than awards for excellence in the theater arts. Coffee shops are for social networking more than caffeine. Gyms are hallowed places where those who would have been, in the past, facing natures challenges to survive, are pursuing those endorphins and the physical excellence that was necessary to survive in the wild as a recreational substitution. Geographic locations are iconographic for people’s dreams. Nashville is an odd fusion – a modern, eclectic city that
encapsulates a tradition of rural songwriting and performing, and is also the urban heart for those working in that tradition.
My models come from both my vintage photography collection to regional Burlesque performers. They serve as actors on my stages, and are often the writers of the plays themselves through their performance.