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.
Jan Hankins
Memphis, TN
Run Silent, Run Deep, 2020 acrylic on canvas, 62 x 2 in.
born in 1952, Memphis, Tennessee
lives in Memphis, Tennessee
1974 BA, Memphis Academy of Art, Memphis, TN
Recent Exhibitions
2018 Art of Science, Memphis College of Art, Memphis, TN
2017 Jan Hankins: Paintings (solo exhibition), Memphis College of Art, Memphis, TN
The Red Clay Survey: 2017 Exhibition of Contemporary Southern Art, Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, AL
2016 Art of Science, Hyde Gallery, Memphis, TN (also 2013)
Biennial Alumni Exhibition, Hyde Gallery, Memphis, TN (also 2014)
2015 Art of the South, Hyde Gallery, Memphis, TN
2013 Present Tense: The Art of Memphis from 2001-Now, Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Memphis, TN
2012 11 Septembers, Art Lab, Museum of the University of Memphis, Memphis, TN
Honors/Awards
2001 Best in Show, 14th Annual Artstravaganza, Hunter Museum, Chattanooga, TN
2000 Best in Show: Special Projects, Arts in the Park, Audubon Park, Memphis, TN
Kimberly Hart
Huntsville, AL
The Truth Can’t Come with Tassels, 2016 mixed media, 19 x 24 in.
Kimberly is a multidisciplinary artist, who makes visual stories from dreams and stories intuitively layering color to create imagery, offering the beauty of spontaneity and the element of surprise. Her work was shown at the Huntsville Museum of Art, and the Wiregrass Biennial. She received a BA from the University of Alabama, Huntsville.
Her studio space is located on the second floor in the Barking Dog Arts, #256, of Lowe Mill Arts and Entertainment, now America’s largest independent center for the arts.
Artist Statement
I combine different methods such as printmaking, drawing, and collage to build up layers of pattern and shape to uncover the mysteries of dream and memory. Each piece begins life as a drawing, built by intuitively layering color to create imagery, offering the beauty of spontaneity and the element of surprise. I add more color and shape with layers of paper, paint, and wax, overlaying the piece with symbols and meaning. The layering lends itself to the ambiguity of the subconscious, which in turn creates a visual dialogue between the viewer and the work, letting the viewer bring her interpretation to each piece.
Winfred Hawkins
Montgomery, AL
Ferguson Memorial, 2018 mixed media, 32 x 48 in.
Winfred Hawkins started drawing at an early age. He developed his drafting skills by watching his father and copying animals from nature books. “I was basically a copying machine. I would draw just about anything you put in front of me.”
While in high school, he was commissioned by the Troy University Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery, Alabama to design 10 bronze roundels for the outside of the museum. He completed the project after graduating from Savannah College of Art and Design. Winfred has been working as a graphic designer since 2007.
After suffering from a nerve injury in 2012, affecting both arms, he has considerably changed his style to incorporate the use of both hands. Winfred mostly uses his non-dominant, right hand, for sketching, but sometimes paints an entire work. The left hand he reserves for work that is more involved, in style, as well as subject matter. With this technique, Winfred creates original characters, incorporating them into his own unique mythology and art style.
Donté Hayes
Kennesaw, GA
Feed, 2019
ceramic, 9 x 8 x 8 in.
Donté K. Hayes graduated summa cum laude from Kennesaw State University at Kennesaw, Georgia with a BFA in Ceramics and Printmaking with an Art History minor. Hayes received his MA and MFA with honors from the University of Iowa and is the 2017 recipient of the University of Iowa Arts Fellowship. Recent art exhibitions include group shows at the Museum of Science + Industry in Chicago, Illinois, the Association of Visual Arts in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia in Atlanta. Donté’s artwork has been presented at the 1-54 art fair in London, England, and at Design Miami in Florida. He has also been included in recent juried exhibitions from the 2019 NCECA Student Juried Show, and the 2018 River to River Midwest Regional Ceramic Juried Show at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Hayes is a 2019 Ceramics Monthly Magazine Emerging Artists and Artaxis Fellow. Donté is the 2019 winner of the Society 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art from the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, South Carolina. Donté K. Hayes is represented by Mindy Solomon Gallery in Miami, Florida.
Gregory Hennen
Dyke, VA
3 Large Boulders and Reflections, August, Wyatt, MT, 2018 oil on panel, 18 x 18 in.
“The organization of space, essentiality of color and quality of light fascinate me. Depicting the natural world in its exactness is not what I do. Instead, my work reflects what I see and how I feel over time. I generally develop the painting from several small drawings worked on location.
By using a palette of close tonalities the objects and surrounding space along with a carefully planned composition result in an all over patterning of color and shape that at times verges on abstraction. I outline objects such as trees, foliage and bodies of water with a darker shade in order to clarify the individual elements in the landscape.
Each piece is about a landscape, not of a landscape as it does not necessarily depict an exact site or location. Finished paintings are often composites of several images that have evolved from a realistic portrayal to a more simplistic interpretation. I paint to express my love and respect for nature and to cultivate those feelings in others.”