Meet the artists behind the upcoming exhibition, The Red Clay Survey: 2020 Exhibition of Contemporary Southern Art. Each week we will be featuring five of the artists included in this year’s exhibition.  A major recurring regional competition sponsored by the Huntsville Museum of Art , the Red Clay Survey “takes the pulse” of contemporary Southern art through a selection of work in all styles and media. This year’s exhibition includes 85 works by 67 different artists.

Russell Everett

Troy, AL

North Florida/ Lower Alabama Billboards: FLOUNDERS, 2017 crayon, watercolor, ink on paper, 31 x 22 inches

 

Born in 1952, Washington, DC

Lives in Troy, Alabama

 

1974       BFA, Auburn University, Auburn, AL

1976       MFA, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH

2000  — Present, Lecturer / Instructor, Troy University – Montgomery Campus, Montgomery, AL

 

Recent Exhibitions

2019       Solo Exhibition, Johnson Art Center, Troy, Alabama

28th Emerald Coast National Juried Exhibition, Northwest Florida State College, Niceville, FL (also 2018)

2018       16th Annual Arts Revive Alabama Artists Roots and Wings Exhibition, Carneal Gallery, Selma, AL

 

Honors/Awards

2019       First Place, Best Drawing, Third Place, 19th Selma Summer Competition, Selma Art Guild, Selma, AL

2016       Third Prize, Decatur Arts Festival, Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA

 

Museum/University Collections

Ball State University, Muncie, IN

Butler Institute of American Art Youngstown, OH

Del Mar College, Corpus Christi, TX

Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, AL

Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, AL

Northwest Florida State University, Niceville, FL

Trenton State University, Trenton, NJ

Diane Fox

Knoxville, TN

Rabbits, German Hunting and Fishing Museum, Munich, Germany, 2019 archival pigment print, 28 x 18.5 in.

Diane Fox is an artist whose work speaks to the perpetually dissolving connection of humanity to the natural world.

Solo exhibitions of her photographic body of work, “UnNatural History,” have been shown nationally and internationally including at the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Los Angeles, CA; Erie Art Museum, Erie, PA; Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, AL; Dom Muz Gallery, Torun, Poland; Antenna Gallery, New Orleans, LA; and Santa Reparata Gallery, Florence, Italy. Selected pieces have been exhibited in numerous Invitational and juried shows including the Museum of Modern Art in Tbilisi, Georgia; Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO; Greyfriars Art Space in Norfolk, England; and Prix de la Photographie in Paris, France. Images from “UnNatural History” are cited in Giovanni Aloi’s books Art and Animals and Speculative Taxidermy: Animal Surfaces and Art in the Anthropocene, and by Alexis Turner in Taxidermy published by Thymes and Hudson.

In 2017, her work was shown internationally at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, France and the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfort, Germany as part of their exhibition “Dioramas” that looked at the diorama both historically and through the work of contemporary artists who use the diorama as subject.

Fox is a Distinguished Lecturer in the College of Architecture and Design at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville where she teaches photography and graphic design. Fox has a MFA from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville and a BFA from Middle Tennessee State University.

Carl Gombert

Maryville, TN

Intersection, 2019 rubber stamped monotype, collage, found objects over acrylic, 24 x 48 in.

Carl Gombert was born in Brimfield, Ohio in 1959.  He started taking painting lessons at the age of 14 with money he earned delivering newspapers.  He earned a BFA in Drawing from the University of Akron and an MFA in Painting from Kent State University.  He worked as a stagehand before pursuing a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Fine Arts at Texas Tech University.  He has exhibited widely and his work is in numerous public and corporate collections. Since 1993 has taught painting, drawing and art history at Maryville College in Tennessee.

Victor Gomez

Miami, FL

Beyond Expected, 2020 oil monotype, 22.5 x 33.5 in.

Victor Gómez was born in Havana, Cuba on May 27th, 1944. In 1963, when he was 19 years old, he started his studies at San Alejandro Fine Arts Academy, in Havana, Cuba.
In 1980 he emigrated to the United States where he now has his residence.In 1986 Victor Gomez founded the Miami Press Publishers and Distributors, Inc. a Printmaking Workshop dedicated to promote and publish limited editions of Cuban masters as well as contemporary artists. Within a few years, Victor Gomez published the works of thirty-nine Cuban artists, including Cundo Bermudez, Mario Carreño, Agustin Fernandez, Jose Mijares, Guido Llinas, Osvaldo Gutierrez, Hugo Consuegra, Gay Garcia, Carmen Herrera and many others, as well as his own art.He has received numerous awards including the Who’s Who Among Hispanic Americans in 1991 and 1992, the Tai-Ho-Masterpiece Award at theInternational Printmaking Biennial of Beijing, Beijing, Popular Republic of China in 2003, The Tosayamada Museum of Art Prize,3rd Kochi International Triennial Exhibition of Prints in Kochi, Japan, and  Los Oficios Award, at the IX Cuban Printmakers Encounter, Center for the Development of Visual Arts in Havana, Cuba in 2016,
Victor Gómez is a member of the Florida Printmakers Society, The International Graphic Art Foundation, The International Print Triennial Society of Cracow, The Boston Printmakers, and The Monotype Guild of New England, Massachusetts. He is among the artists appearing in the published book Art Of Cuba In Exile by Jose Gomez Sicre, the founder and first director of the Museum Art of Latin America, Washington, DC and has been selected by a group of Cuban curators to be part of the 450 major artists that will appear in the volume Memoria, Cuban Art of the 20th Century.
Bio courtesy of Fine Art Biblio

Karen Graffeo

Birmingham, AL 

Santiago, 2018
archival pigment print, 38 x 24 in.

Karen Graffeo is an Professor of Art and director of photography concentration at the University of Montevallo. She received her Master of Fine Arts degree in Photography and Painting at the University of Alabama. In 2005 she was named University Scholar at the University of Montevallo for her documentary photography work in Roma (Gypsy) communities and refugee encampments in Europe.

Karen Graffeo is an active multi-media artist in photography, performance and installation. She has had numerous national and international solo exhibitions. Her exhibition “Let Us Now Praise the Roma” has been exhibited in Paris, Italy, New York, and Romania. In 2010 her work was displayed at the Mobile Museum of Art’s survey of Southern Women Photographers. Her recent lenticular installation, “Re:re:re:fwd:fwd:Forward” was exhibited in Florence, Italy. In October 2011, SACI University in Florence, Italy will present her photographic opera collaboration with composer Rusty Banks.

She has received grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts, and the Andy Warhol Foundation through Space One Eleven Contemporary Arts Center. Her work was published in Aperture Magazine. Her work is included in public and private collections in Japan, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Ireland, Italy, Hungary, and Birmingham, Alabama.