Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Weekly Picks.... 10/27- 11/2

**PICK NUMBER ONE:

Blair Hobbs at Southside Gallery




The closing reception for local artist Blair Hobbs at Southside Gallery on Thursday, October 28 from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.  
For more information please contact the gallery, 662.234.9090.
 
            “Blair’s new work is as imaginative and witty as ever,” said Southside Gallery’s Wil Cook.  “Her dexterity – both conceptually and technically – as an artist is one of her strong points.  The collages to be included in the exhibit that I have seen are some of the most creative works we have had in a while.  This show will be very refreshing for those with an unconventional, bold and impulsive taste for art.  Blair has a unique style to say the least.”
 
            Hobbs was born in Oxford, but grew up in AuburnAlabama where her father was the dean of Arts and Sciences and her mother was an art professor at Auburn University.  She earned a BA in English at Auburn, an MA in creative writing from Hollins University and an MFA in creative writing from The University of Michigan.  Currently, Hobbs teaches a variety of writing genres at Ole Miss. 
 
            An affinity for literature and a comical sense for the absurd pervade Hobbs’s work.  It is not unusual for her to include quotes from poems or prose in her collages.  One of her collages even lists the ingredients found in Funyuns, a snack food made from dubious ingredients.  Hobbs explains, “When I make the collages, I begin with an umbrella idea, a thesis.  For this show, most of the art came from places I've never been before.  For example, I've never been inside a pillow full of dust mites. I've never been inside a Funyuns bag. I've never worn a jellyfish skirt, a corset, or an anthill.  I've never twirled fire on a football field.  I've never been inside of a firecracker.  Instead of sending myself to Japan, I wanted to see how much fun I could have with the mundane things surrounding me.  I incorporate language into the collage to enhance the visual narrative with language.  For example, my Funyuns piece is all about people having fun with enormous versions of the snack food, but the ingredients on the bag are sort of scary, so I wrote the long list of ingredients around the border of the piece.  In this piece I hope that the language of the bag creates some ironic tension against the playground of Funyuns.”
 
            This exhibit will be Hobbs’s fourth exhibit at Southside Gallery.  Hobbs has also exhibited work in MontgomeryAlabamaBirminghamAlabama, Hilton Head, South Carolina and New OrleansLouisiana.  Her art and photography have been published in The Oxford American. 
 
            Southside Gallery, located on the downtown Square in Oxford, specializes in showcasing Southern artists.
 
 Southside Gallery
150 Courthouse Square
Oxford, MS 38655
662.234.9090

**PICK NUMBER TWO:

MGMT at The Lyric

This one isn't very fair since it's been sold out for weeks, but I bet if you really want to go, I'm sure some folks will be selling their tickets out front the night of the show.

MGMT at The Lyric on Saturday, Oct. 30th. 
Doors are at 8. 

**PICK NUMBER THREE:

Photos by Brooke White
for the Bright Kids Foundation at the Powerhouse

Commuters, focuses on the children of Uganda who are forced to flee their homes every night to seek refuge in local villages so they will not be abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army. Many of these 'night commuters' head for shelters such as the Bright Kids Uganda Orphanage, with whom I have been working with for the past five years. Commuters is part of my continued artistic research, which over the past five years has focused on how people relate to place and the landscape amidst turmoil and war. My interest in this project began in 2003 when I traveled to the Third World countries of Kenya, Rwanda, and Cambodia to investigate how people relate to place when their landscape and homes are completely demolished due to war and turmoil. When visiting Rwanda to photograph the landscape and people living in a post-genocide landscape, I focused on the ways in which people adapt, recover, and re-develop their landscapes when they are rendered utterly unrecognizable.

Powerhouse Arts Center, Oxford, MS- October 11th-November 8th.
Open Monday-Friday 9AM-5PM

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