August Art Crawl showcases local talent

Posted on Aug 28 2018 - 5:50am by Kennedy Pope

The Yoknapatawpha Arts Council is hosting its August Art Crawl on Tuesday night, taking attendees to several sites around Oxford for art, food and drinks.

This free, monthly event starts at the Powerhouse, where visitors will explore a gallery of 10 local artists and board one of Oxford’s double-decker buses. The bus will take them to six different venues on campus and around Oxford.

"Reverie and Roots" by Jaime Aelavanthara

Photo Courtesy: Jaime Aelavanthara

One of the stops on the art crawl is the University of Mississippi Museum’s new exhibit “Where the Roots Rise,” featuring a series of tea-stained cyanotypes by Jaime Aelavanthara.

Senior elementary education major Anastasia Berthold attended the exhibit’s opening reception last week. She said the photographs demonstrate that the gap between nature and mankind is much smaller than many perceive.

“This exhibit is one of the best I have seen at the UM Museum because it shows the small difference between human and nature, and the name of the exhibit depicts what the artist is trying to say,” Berthold said.

This month’s art crawl has another on-campus stop at Gallery 130 in Meek Hall. This gallery shows works — from sculptures to graphic designs — created by students in the art department during the past semester. The current exhibit, which features student work from the summer, ends Thursday.

On the Square, Uptown Coffee is featuring artist Nicole Gladden’s “Transformation,” an exhibit that she says reflects one stage of her life.

“My art is a soulful journey exploring love, loss and transformation,” Gladden said. “The use of bright colors and playful compositions add levity to the overall disquiet that ‘Transformation’ brings.”

Also on the Square, Southside Gallery is hosting Jerrod Partridge’s “A Eudaimonic Search” and Jonathan Kent Adams’ “Myth of the Beast” exhibits. Around the corner, works from the Oxford Treehouse Gallery are on display at the Chancellor’s House Hotel.

“(Oxford Treehouse Gallery) is pleased to exhibit six regional artists in the exquisite setting of the Chancellor’s House Hotel,” owner Vivian Neill said. “Although (the gallery) is only seven miles from the Square, the Chancellor’s House provides an opportunity for art lovers to sample some of the work carried by our gallery.”

The Basement Gallery hosts an exhibit called “All Abstract,” featuring the works of local artist E.M. Skinner. Basement Gallery owner Tommy Cribbs said the group will be providing food and wine for visitors.

The art crawl is likely to bring out Oxford residents as well as students such as junior education major Paige Bielat, who attended the July Art Crawl.

“It was eye-opening to see how such a small town like Oxford can have so many different artists from all over bring their art here to be shown,” Bielat said. “I would recommend the art crawl to anyone interested in learning more about Oxford and art in general.”

The next art crawl will be on Sept. 25.