BY ANN-MARIE HEROD
For the month of June, Southside Art Gallery will have an exhibit of the students’ work from University of Mississippi art professor Philip Jackson. Tonight an artist reception will be held from 6:30 p.m. until 8:30 p.m.
The exhibit is curated by Ole Miss art professor Philip Jackson and features not only paintings he selected from his students but his artwork as well. Also featured in the show is artist Brian Rego. Rego currently teaches drawing and painting at The University of South Carolina and Benedict College with a specialty in plein air painting.
Will Cook, who is the director of the gallery, approached Jackson months ago to curate a show for Southside. Jackson took that opportunity to showcase his students work and Cook couldn’t be more excited about this show.
“This show is just an opportunity to exhibit the visiting artist work along with the university student works,” Cook said. “We usually don’t exhibit students work that often here and we’re really excited to have the chance to do it and hopefully the people of Oxford will come out and support the show and see what the students are doing.”
In the past Cook said that they have had the thesis work of a few MFA students, but that’s as much as they have done.
During this past May intersession Jackson and Rego taught an intensive art course on plein air painting to eight students, which ranged from undergrad to grad students and even one alumnus.
Every day for two weeks the students went out into the Oxford and Lafayette Community and painted their surroundings.
“The focus was the Landscape,” Jackson said. “We went out everyday for eight hours, all day and painted roughly about two paintings a day. During the morning we would have a painting session then break and have an informal discussion about what they were experiencing.”
All together the students and professors ended up painting more than a hundred paintings and only half of them were selected.
“This is kind of exciting because I’ve had a few students show there individually but none never collectively, so I’m excited for my class to have their work in a gallery and show among their peers,” Jackson said.
Ole Miss student Claire Whitehurst took the course and gave nothing but rave reviews for the class as well as her professors.
“It was a wonderful way to learn now to observe the changing landscape of Mississippi in the early summer,” she said. “Philip Jackson and Brian Rego are passionate artists and educators and it was an honor and a privilege to sit and paint with them everyday.”
Whitehurst was not just impressed with her professors but fellow classmates as well. The way she and her fellow classmates were able to communicate effectively and critique each other also impressed her.
“I learned an incredible amount from the other students by talking about our work in progress together and sharing successes and struggles,” Whitehurst said. “We all were working in the same outdoor studio and I think we all really fed off of that. It was really great.”
The outdoors studio she speaks of is the everyday surroundings of the people living here right in this community. Some of the places they went included Rowan Oak, Sardis Lake, Lamar Park, North Lamar, the Reservoir and Oxford Cemetery.
“I think the community will receive this really well,” Jackson said. “They get to take a second look at this community through our eyes. We’re painting a place that they have lived in for many years and seeing this show may give hem an extra look at a subject they haven’t seen this way.”
The undergraduate work is being sold for prices as low as $50 to a $100 and the graduate work is $75 to $150 with larger pieces priced as high as $500. The largest piece, painted by the professors is priced at $4000.
