Huntsville, Ala – The Huntsville Museum of Art (HMA) is pleased to present The Red Clay Survey: 2017 Exhibition of Contemporary Southern Art, which opens to the public on Sunday, July 9th. The Red Clay Survey is a recurring juried exhibition and will be on view at the Museum through October 1, 2017.
Initiated in 1988, The Red Clay Survey takes the pulse of contemporary Southern art through a selection of works in all styles and media determined by a juror with strong national credentials. The works in The Red Clay Survey typically range in style from the traditional to the avant-garde and encompass painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, fine craft, photography and mixed media works from artists throughout an 11-state region. These works reflect the multifaceted state of today’s art.
“The Red Clay Survey provides Museum visitors with a unique glimpse into the contemporary art scene from all across the Southern states,” Peter J. Baldaia, HMA’s Director of Curatorial Affairs, said. “This competition is important not only for recognizing established and upcoming artists, but to also document the current style of southern contemporary art.”
This year’s juror, artist and educator Gerry Bergstein, is represented in the collections of The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; MIT; DeCordova Museum; Davis Museum at Wellesley College; IBM; and many others. His work has been reviewed widely in ARTnews, Art in America and Artforum magazines. Bergstein has been on the faculty at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for over three decades.
For this competition, Bergstein juried the submitted artwork through a comprehensive, two-fold process involving an initial stage of online jurying by digital image and a second stage of reviewing actual works on-site at the Museum. The first stage review of images reduced an initial field of nearly 1,500 submissions to 105 works by 72 artists. The second stage, on-site review of actual works resulted in the juror selecting 81 works by 54 artists for inclusion in the exhibition. The competition features approximately $10,000 in cash awards, including Museum Purchase Awards and a People’s Choice Award determined by visitors to the exhibition during the run of the show.
The Museum will celebrate the opening of the exhibition with a festive Members’ Preview Party and Awards Ceremony on Saturday, July 8, 2017 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and will feature great food and drinks, live music by The Watters-Felts Project and a meet-and-greet with most of the artists included in the show. This event is free to Museum members and participating Red Clay artists. Non-members will be admitted for $25 per person. Guests are asked to RSVP by July 3rd to 256-535-4350 ext. 208. Limited space is available.
Major support for the exhibition was provided by The Kuehlthau Family Foundation. Additional support was provided by The Alabama State Council on the Arts, Altherr Howard Design and the Huntsville Museum of Art Guild. Red Clay Award Sponsors include: Anonymous, Alice Chang, Huntsville Museum of Art Docents, Susan and Robert Kuehlthau, Kelly and Randy Schrimsher, and Anne and Ed Uher.
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PARTICIPATING 2017 RED CLAY ARTISTS
ALABAMA
Douglas Baulos (Birmingham)
Tara Bullington (Florence)
Neil Callander (Tuscaloosa)
Derek Cracco (Vestavia)
Karen Graffeo (Birmingham)
Ryan Foster (Birmingham)
Randy Gachet (Birmingham)
Willoughby Hastings (Huntsville)
Stacey Holloway (Birmingham)
Dale Lewis (Oneonta)
Kathryn Mayo (Sardis)
Larry Percy (Troy)
Jane Phillips (Huntsville)
Dennis Potter (Huntsville)
Lee Prout (Huntsville)
Jared Ragland and Cary Norton (Birmingham)
Chris Taylor (Huntsville)
Rachel Wright (Mobile)
FLORIDA
Victor Gomez (Miami)
John Markowitz (Cantonment)
Aimee Perez (Miami)
Bethany Taylor (Gainesville)
GEORGIA
Meg Aubrey (Atlanta)
Robert Detamore (Barnesville)
Charles Ladson (Macon)
Barbara Mann (Watkinsville)
Forest McMullin (Atlanta)
Duane Paxson (Corner)
Richard Pruett (Monroe)
Karen Schwartz (Atlanta)
Michael Sugarman (Atlanta)
Ted Whisenhunt (Young Harris)
KENTUCKY
Brandon Lutterman (Middlesboro)
David Marquez (Bowling Green)
Leslie Nichols (Bowling Green)
Brent Oglesbee (Bowling Green)
LOUISIANA
Aron Belka (New Orleans)
Stephen Breaux (Mandeville)
Les Schmidt (New Orleans)
MISSISSIPPI
Tanja Gant (Madison)
Ruth Miller (Picayune)
NORTH CAROLINA
Dana Brown (Maggie Valley)
Melissa Lovingood (Greensboro)
SOUTH CAROLINA
Mana Hewitt (Columbia)
TENNESSEE
Don DuMont (Memphis)
Jan Hankins (Memphis)
Jarrod Houghton (Murfreesboro)
Donald Keefe (Ooltewah)
Joe Morzuch (Memphis)
Wesley Ortiz (Memphis)
Sisavanh Phouthavong-Houghton (Murfreesboro)
Marc Rouillard (Memphis)
Zack Underwood (Memphis)