Southside Gallery currently has a joint exhibition on display featuring the works of Spence Townsend and Allan Innman. Innman’s “Flights of Fancy” and Townsend’s “libretto” will be on display at Southside Gallery until September 12.
Townsend is a graduate student pursing his MFA and teaches classes in painting and drawing at the University of Georgia. Townsend said his current artwork draws much inspiration from literature and music and he is “interested in the synesthetic possibilities” that can be derived from such disciplines. Work from Townsend’s “libretto” series will be on display, where real world objects and scenes are manipulated near to the “point of absurdity.”
Among the earliest of Townsend’s works is one related to Oxford itself. Each year, Townsend’s father would take him and his brother to the Egg Bowl, where Ole Miss plays Mississippi State each year. After one game, Townsend became inspired. He spent hours on an illustrated story book which described the game in detail. At the time Townsend was around 10 or 11 years old.
Besides artistry, Townsend is also a musician in his free time. For a time after attaining his undergraduate degree from the University of Southern Mississippi, Townsend almost exclusively pursued music.
Townsend describes his own work as whimsical with occasionally sinister undertones. Like his close friend Allan Innman, Townsend is thrilled to be part of the exhibition.
Allan Innman was born and raised in Oxford and graduated in 2006 with a BFA in studio art from the University of Mississippi.
After he graduated, Innman worked as a visual resources specialist in the art department on campus. In addition to his BFA, Innman has recently received his MFA in drawing and painting from the University of Georgia Lamar Dodd School of Art.
Innman’s earlier work, which he started several years ago, featured painted toys depicted in hyperrealism. Starting around 2012, Innman said he “introduced a new color palette, and [his] work became more narrative.”
Southside Gallery director Will Cook said Innman’s work became “looser, more surreal, and more fantasy-oriented.”
His “Flights of Fancy” series is based around “childhood make-believe fantasies.”
In addition to the current exhibition, some of Innman’s older work is also on display.
Cook described Townsend’s anthropomorphic work as “illustrative, with some having dark humor,” and Innman as a skilled, vibrant painter.
In addition to the exhibition, the closing reception and lecture for Terry Lynn’s “Beyond the Fields” will take place this evening from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Before the reception Lynn will be giving an introduction, which is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m.
