The Alabama Center for the Arts is pleased to announce its newest exhibit, Wild and Precious, featuring artists Rebecca Sower and Tonya Gillespie Witt,will be opening in the Center’s Main Gallery on Tuesday, May 6. An Opening Reception will be held at the Alabama Center for the Arts on Tuesday, May 13 from 5:30 – 7:00 pm. The exhibit and reception are both free and open to the public.
The theme for the show was inspired by a poem titled “A Summer Day” by Mary Oliver, specifically the line “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Wild and Precious will focus on what is wild and precious in life and nature, and also feature a play on the theme of how we choose to live the precious moments of our lives, what we value, and what we want our days and moments to look like.
The exhibit will feature work heavily nature-based in theme, specifically North Alabama wildlife, river, and refuge themes. Running alongside these themes will be symbolic narrative, figurative and portraiture art sharing Sower and Gillespie Witt’s interpretation of the quote from Mary Oliver’s poem.
Rebecca Sower is a mixed media artist born in Nashville, but recently relocated near the Tennessee River in North Alabama. She believes art should sing a song and tell a story. Each painting she begins is a new adventure and experiment for her. Sower’s work begins in a very personal way – she scribbles down her thoughts and feelings onto the canvas, her wishes and blessings for the potential collector. From there, things build up layer by layer, a long but rewarding process. She hopes her art compels the viewer to pause and stare a bit, to find secrets and surprises in the layers.
Tonya Gillespie Witt grew up in Decatur, Alabama with her mother and three sisters. Through dance lessons when she was young, she learned that she could express her emotion through an art form. She also took delight and inspiration from nature, as being outdoors was her outlet and play place. Her background lends to a connection to nature and sustainability in art and in life. She learned to be creative and inventive, and make things from what she had, repurposing objects and materials.
Gillespie Witt received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting/Drawing from Auburn University where she grew to appreciate a love for the weight and gravity of a simple line, and an intuitive application of color. Acrylic is her favored color medium because of its immediacy and speed, and she incorporates treasures, paper, and words buried in the paint, as a record of her day. Each completed painting is a snapshot of her emotions, sensibility and place in time, and is the equivalent of a diary page. Some recurring themes or concepts in her work are the environment (both internal and external), sustainability, natural objects, light and line, and concepts of façade vs reality.
Wild and Precious closes on June 26. The Alabama Center for the Arts is open Monday through Thursday from 8:00 am – 8:00 pm and on Friday from 8:00 am – 12:00 pm.