Those attending the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference can take time off from tours and lectures to enjoy various artists’ visual representations of William Faulkner and his works.
Pieces by Southern artists such as William Dunlap, Steven Chapp, Andrew Blanchard and Phillip McGuire will grace the walls of Southside Gallery to commemorate the famed author. Rowan Oak Series by David Jewell and Glennray Tutor’s book covers will also be on display. The exhibit, titled “Faulkner on Paper” is meant to coincide with the conference which this year explores the topic “Faulkner and Print Culture”.
The artists both celebrate Southern culture and Faulkner’s legacy through their pieces, some of which depict the author himself and others that illustrate scenes from his novels. Chapp displays scenes from “As I Lay Dying” in different mediums. The pieces are dramatic both because of their content and their processes.
Some of the pieces, like those by Blanchard, don’t immediately ooze “Faulkner”, but rather, capture the aspects of the author’s novels for which he is so loved and well-known: the unbridled, unrefined South, and the details that make it that way, like the fallen deer corpse, something strange someone might see and accept without thought.
As Blanchard finished pieces for an exhibition to be held later in the fall, he was asked to be a part of “Faulkner on Paper”. One of Blanchard’s good friends then suggested that his landscapes could be self-portraits. This unexpected suggestion drove Blanchard to explore his connection to Faulkner.
“I felt I would further investigate that notion by taking a few of Faulkner’s life lessons to heart and mind,” Blanchard said. “I’m more of a fan of his short stories than his novels at the moment. ‘Race at Morning’ and ‘The Old People’ offer much insight into the lives of men, or shall we say boys turning into men. I’m no chauvinist, though see no harm in visually honoring the words of a particular man, Faulkner, for lending encouraging life lessons when you may be without someone to show you the way.”
Having lived in the South, Blanchard’s connection to Southern authors such as Faulkner, Barry Hannah and Flannery O’Connor has always resonated with him.
“I utilize their words by rehashing my Southern past in order to help construct artwork that I have lived and am currently living,” Blanchard said. “And, selfishly, I appropriate some of their sentences, phrases, and words as titles to my artwork.”
The works together are intricate, like the thin branches of the trees in Blanchard’s two works, and simple, like Dunlap and McGuire’s seemingly intimate charcoal and graphite portraits of the author.
Dunlap, who attended school at the University of Mississippi only five years after the death of Faulkner, said he often felt inspired by his writing and paid homage to the man visually.
“This is not the first time I’ve used him in my imagery,” said Dunlap. “The aura, the cloud of the great man hung over the place in a palpable way, and I found some photographs and used them in prints before, you know, he’s just an iconic image. That face and mustache, it’s easily recognizable.”
Dunlap said he urges conference-goers and others to visit Southside Gallery, as the visual arts will only bring another dimension to Faulkner’s words.
“There’s no reason the visual arts shouldn’t reach the literary arts at least halfway,” said Dunlap.
Each of the artist’s pieces is unique and personal, and the exhibit as a whole represents an exploration by each artist through themes and symbols, which are beneath the surface of each work by Faulkner. The viewer will see an array of mediums and subjects that explore Faulkner’s ageless stories, his south, and the man himself.
Southside Gallery will present “Faulkner on Paper” throughout July and until August 15.
