Richard Knowles was a Mid-South painter with an extensive record of exhibitions, commissions, and teaching. He was a retired Professor of Art (Distinguished Emeritus) from the University of Memphis (1999). He has produced paintings, drawings, and photography for exhibition at many local, regional, and national sites. His work is represented in collections and installations in Boston, St. Louis, Kansas City (KS), Little Rock, Nashville, Memphis and several city art museums, universities and private collections. He is represented in Memphis by The Richard Knowles Legacy Project - Contact Jason Miller 901.229.1041.

Recent activity includes group exhibitions at the Memphis College of Art (2007), University of Memphis (2007), Northwest Mississippi Community College (2008), and the Sage Farm Art Contemporary Gallery, Taos, New Mexico. Recent mural commissions include Harrah's Inn and Casino in East Chicago and the Westin Hotel in Memphis. Collections include the State Museum, Nashville, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, The University of Memphis, Arkansas State University, and the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.

"My aim as a painter is to record the dynamic forces of nature from mostly wilderness areas. Through experiments with abstract form and color I establish visual equivalents for the energies of deserts, mountains, canyons, forests, and the sea that my wife Carol and I have been visiting for many years. I also have an interest in the complexity of nature's forms, with emphasis on the apparent chaos one sees in wilderness areas, for example, rather than the reductive wastelands and geometries in nature created by human development."

–Richard Knowles

Collect art by Richard Knowles here

Experimental Relationship (2007- Now)

As a woman brought up in China, I used to think I could only love someone who is older and more mature than me, who can be my protector and mentor. Then I met my current boyfriend, Moro. Since he is 5 years younger than me, I felt that whole concept of relationships changed, all the way around. I became the person who has more authority & power. One of my male friends even questioned how I could choose a boyfriend the way a man would choose a girlfriend. And I thought, "Damn right. That’s exactly what I’m doing, & why not!"

I started to experiment with this relationship. I would set up all kinds of situations for Moro and I to perform in the photos. My photos explore the alternative possibilities of heterosexual relationships. They question what is the norm of heterosexual relationships. What will happen if man & woman exchange their roles of sex & roles of power. Because my boyfriend is Japanese, and I am Chinese, this project also describes a love and hate relationship.

BIO

Born and raised in Shanghai, China, Yijun Liao is an artist currently resides in Brooklyn, NY.

She is a recipient of NYFA Fellowship, En Foco's New Works Awards and LensCulture Exposure Awards, etc,. She is a resident at Light Work in 2015. She has done artist residencies at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace program, AIR program at CPW, and Camera Club of New York in the past.

Liao’s photographs have been exhibited internationally, including Arario Gallery (NY), Flowers Gallery (NY), kunst licht Gallery (China), He Xiangning Art Museum(China), VT Art Salon (Taiwan), Kips Gallery (Korea), The Running Horse Contemporary Art Space (Lebanon), Format Photo Festival (UK), Noorderlicht Photo Festival (Netherlands), etc,.

Liao holds a MFA in photography from University of Memphis.

Collect art by Pixy Liao here

Inventory List

ARTIST STATEMENT

The current work (2017) represents “stream of consciousness”.  Since 2010, I have been combining multiple, connected images into my paintings to create singular compositions.   With the more recent paintings, I have come to realize the importance of letting the image making process be more organic and “free”, allowing the paintings to exist for themselves as opposed to rigid, singularly defined personal reflections.

ARTIST’S BIO

Brian Bundren earned his M.F.A. from the University of Memphis in 2012 and has held a full-time faculty position at Freed-Hardeman University (FHU) since 2008.  Bundren teaches Painting I - IV, Drawing I - II, Renaissance Art History and supervises the Senior Practicum capstone project for studio art majors.  He also supervises the installation of exhibitions at FHU's Troy Plunk Art Gallery and assists with coordinating exhibitions.

In 2014, Bundren published his first instructional book through iBooks and Apple©.  "Drawing 101: An Introduction to Basic Fundamentals" is a digital textbook complete with photos and videos that demonstrate basic drawing concepts through a variety of exercises.  The tutorials provided will help beginners to know where to start and aid serious art students in building their portfolios.

In 2015, Bundren developed and became the Program Coordinator for FHU's new Bachelor of Fine Arts program.  This degree has put the fine arts program at FHU on par with national undergraduate standards and sets the university apart from other private, Church of Christ - based campuses by being one of only two universities east of the Mississippi River to offer this option for fine art studio majors.  With a B.F.A., graduates are poised to begin careers in the fine arts with needed experience or pursue graduate level programs.

Collect art by Brian Bundren here

Objects are sorts of time capsules, which could be likened to a memory card or hard drive that holds data. Each object links to a memory and triggers one to revisit a key moment experienced and shared in life, alone or with another person. The residue of our experiences remain fragmented throughout the objects with which we interact.

–Jason Nicholas Miller, MFA

Dairy Diary Series here

Sacred Vessels Series here

Annette Elizabeth Fournet has exhibited her photography in galleries and museums in France, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Romania, Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Italy, Spain, Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Korea, and the United States.

Her work is included in public and corporate collections such as the Bibliotheque Nationale, San Diego Museum of Photographic Art, Houston Museum of Fine Art, Prague House of Photography, New Orleans Museum of Art, and others.

Annette Fournet lives and teaches photography in Memphis, Tennessee and in Prague, Czech Republic.

Collect art by Annette Fournet here

Biographical Statement

Born in Hebron, Nebraska James Bockelman grew up in Des Moines, Iowa. And though he doesn't remember the word design being used in the home, one of his earliest memories of visual organization occurred when his mother asked him to help her move the furniture in the living room. As he recalls, "She explained to me why we moved the couch just off center, in order to create a room within a room". Encouraged to take art courses throughout high school, one of his political cartoons was published in the Des Moines Register for a contest related to the Presidential race of 1980. In 1989 he graduated from Concordia University with a major in art education and moved to Ontario, California where he taught eighth grade for three and a half years before returning to Concordia as an instructor of art. In 1997 he earned the Master of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln.

Since that time, his work has been represented by Lo River Arts in Beacon, New York, the Karolyn Sherwood Gallery in Des Moines, and is currently represented by Modern Arts Midtown in Omaha. In addition to exhibiting in numerous group shows throughout the region, Bockelman's art was featured in solo exhibitions at the Sheldon Memorial Museum of Art in Lincoln, the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney, the Norfolk Arts Center in Norfolk, Nebraska, and the Kunstoffice in Berlin, Germany. A recipient of a Nebraska Arts Fellowship Award in 2007, his paintings were recently included in the exhibition Art Seen: A Juried Exhibition of Artists from Omaha to Lincoln at the Joslyn Museum of Art in Omaha and juried by Joslyn curator Karin Campbell and Bill Arning, Director of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. This fall, Bockelman is preparing work for exhibitions in Denver and St Louis.

Artist Statement

At any given time, I carry around with me an assortment of odd, haptic experiences and visual impressions — how can I forget my near sighted father, sitting in the dark living room without his glasses on, staring at the Christmas tree lights because they were fuzzy, orbs of color; and then him inviting me, his thirteen year old son to take my glasses off so that I also might participate in his seeing. These referents register with me. And I often find that a painting may begin there with a slight connotation, with little idea of how the final work will evolve. Though few of the paintings follow any overt theme or formula, they ultimately travel through the process of painting until they accumulate their own identity; these paintings move beyond their initial reference and become a work that I recognize as my own.

I trust the process of painting and often work on twenty-five paintings at one time. I do this because I want to bring all of them up together toward resolution. In doing so, I am able measure how the images dialogue with one another, exchange energy, or serve as an additional, critical space for one another. To decide how to begin a painting is just as important as to decide when the thing is completed. Though I hate using a square format, all of the paintings measure 22” x 22”. The square was selected because of its historic relevance to the development of abstraction and as an appropriate location to study the activity of light and color. Rather than the traditional landscape or portrait, the square, with its even, dynamic energy alludes to a non–site, a location that is in–between. And though my mind and eye are often the most engaged while painting, the painting’s size and scale relate well to the space between my shoulders and hips.

For my records I've titled this series of 22” X 22” oil on paper, These Referents Register.

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Thomas Everett Green (b. 1970) explores contemporary microscopic photography through painting, sculpture, and video installations that reference biology and nature. He earned his BFA at Middle Tennessee State University, and is MFA (with honors) from Memphis College of Art in 2014. He was the 2012-2013 recipient of the Hohenberg Scholarship. His work has been featured in magazines in the United States, Mexico, and Europe and has been shown in New York, Nashville, Memphis, Seattle, Detroit, and the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock. He was curator for the Center for the Arts in Murfreesboro Tennessee 2011 and 2012 and has contributed to publications including Taxi Art Magazine of Guadalajara Mexico and Number: Inc. an independent journal of the Arts for Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Currently, he works as an independent curator, president, and host of the online publication Featherjett Fine Arts, and as an Adjunct Instructor for Memphis College of Art in Memphis Tennessee. He was recently included in the 2013 St. Jude Art of Science exhibition, 2014 Seattle Bumbershoot, D-Lectricity Detroit, and in the collections of Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital. 

Learn more about this artist here.

High on the Hog: Ten Years in the Pits

Photographs of Memphis in May BBQ Fest by Lawrence Jasud

When I moved to Memphis in 1981, I set out to learn and understand Memphis. I had already figured out that my interest lay in American Popular Culture, having grown up on Rock & Roll and the wild exuberance of the ‘60s. Like Stieglitz, I felt that you made photographs wherever you were rather than traveling to exotic locations. I believe the vitality and energy in America arises from the spontaneous creations of people figuring out how to live interesting and fulfilling lives.

It was clear to me that the poles of Memphis culture were Elvis and Barbecue. My previous project was photographing carnivals, fairs and amusement parks. The Barbecue contest was an obvious extension of that work. I love color, movement, energy and visual density, packing as much as I could into each frame while maintaining an underlying visual coherence. The Barbecue contest offered me a wealth of material to work with.

My first visit to the contest was in about 1987. A student of mine who was a member of a neighborhood team invited me. He told me it was a wild 3-day party and it was. The thing I immediately loved was that it was home made and real. The people were passionate about Barbecue and fun. It felt like a bacchanal from some ancient time. It wasn’t slick. The presentation was sometimes ragged and many of the cookers were amazing works of sculpture with only a loose connection between form and function.

As the years rolled on, PR types cleaned up the event and corporations got involved fielding company teams. It got less interesting and less fun. By about 1995 or ’96 I ended the project. The things that drew me to this event in the first place were largely gone.

–Lawrence Jasud

J. Raymond Mireles has been photographing and documenting the American experience for 25 years now. Beginning as a commercial photographer in the 1990’s his roster of advertising clients has included Fortune 500 companies like DuPont, Intuit and Pfizer. Mireles has pursued documentary projects about the oil boom in North Dakota, life in the contemporary art hub of Berlin, economic disparity in the California desert, and the people and places that make up the central New Mexico of his ancestors. His public exhibition of large format portraits, entitled Neighbors, is presently on view in San Diego. 

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Lost Landscapes is a personal investigation into the world around me, how it impacts me and how I connect to it. In a larger sense our actions may seem inconsequential but the mass effect of each person on this planet has the potential to change its very nature. I want the viewer to consider their own connection with the world around them, to think of how they fit into a larger system, and how the seemingly small or insignificant might not actually be so. These works are based on my interest in maps, systems, insects, ecology and sustainability. The forms work as visual tools to help me understand my connections and I hope they do for the viewer as well. 

collect original artworks by Jeff Mickey here

Jason Stout was born in 1977.  He received his BFA in studio art from the University of Tennessee at Martin in 2001 and a MFA in Painting from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2004.  Stout’s work visually deals with elements of formal and figurative abstraction, while exploring such themes as power, history, and identity, especially through the guise of southern culture.  His work exists in several private and public collections, including the University of West Georgia, Jacksonville State University, and the University of Tennessee at Martin. During his career he has participated in several solo exhibitions and has been a part of several group exhibitions as well. Stout has won several scholarships and individual awards for his work.  He is currently an Associate Professor of Art at the University of Tennessee at Martin and is represented by REM gallery in San Antonio, Texas. Stout was recently named TAEA Higher Education Art Educator of the Year for 2015-16.

Reserve Book Here

The Expansive Moment

I have been painting the urban scene in an abstract manner for fifteen years. Early on I painted empty sidewalks and parking lots, transforming the mundane urban landscape with diffuse atmosphere and exaggerated color. In 2009, I began utilizing Internet traffic information as the basis for these increasingly abstracted images. What interested me most were the undifferentiated stretches of the urban Midwest with its mercurial winter weather. In these pieces, the long empty vistas and changing light evoke a degree of wistful contemplation. 

Recently a move to a studio near interstate 55 in Memphis put the highways and sunset views right outside my window. The emotional impact of these deserted panoramas is more important than accurate representation. I am influenced by 19th century American landscape painting and by the Buddhist concept of groundlessness. The tension between abstraction and illusionism in my work generates something familiar and yet unknown, of this world and yet also otherworldly. 

—Susan Maakestad

Collect work by Dan Spector here.

Dan Spector was an artist based in Memphis, TN. He obtained his MFA from Rhode Island School of Art and Design. He worked in plaster casts studying the female form and architectural subject matter. He was a fixture of the Memphis art scene and had a studio on Broad Avenue for many years. He did volunteer work and enjoyed attending art exhibitions at all major galleries and museums. His sculptural works consisting largely of the life casts are represented by Circuitous Succession Gallery. If you are interested in collecting the works of Dan Spector, please contact us through our contact page. Many artworks are listed for sale directly through the online “collect art” gallery on this site and many more are available from our art storage inventory. We offer complementary delivery of all artworks for the Memphis and surrounding region.

(Obit)

Daniel Spector

August 25, 1951- March 31, 2020

Dan Spector, a prominent Memphis sculptor, mold artist and director of historic restoration projects, died of COVID-19 on March 31, 2020. He had been admitted to Methodist Hospital two days earlier, after falling ill the week before. A devoted member of Beth Sholom Congregation, Spector came to Memphis in 1974 after graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), to work as a designer at the Wonder Horse factory in Collierville, TN.

He was known as "an artist's artist," according to Attorney Bruce Newman, who produces a concert series, on which Spector served as a production assistant. Spector was loved and admired for his great work, quirkiness, dry humor, bluntness, kindness and candor. That element didn't always play well in a town where candor is a rare commodity, but Dan and Memphis grew to love one another. He owned Archicast Studios from 1986-2016 when he had to give up the studio in a horribly unfair situation. Other than his studio, the building was a condemnable wreck, so the landlord had to evict him in order to do structural repairs. He then set up Lifecast Studio, and continued to do restoration and contract work in semi-retirement, including restoring the moldings on the 19th Century Club and other historic buildings. A visit to his Broad Street studio revealed the amazing quality of his lifelike sculptures at Archicast; they are beautiful and erotic, with great attention to texture and detail. Dan's love and admiration for women is clearly exhibited in much of his work.

When he arrived in Memphis, Spector asked himself what a red headed Jew from Long Island was doing in a place like Memphis, but he adapted. He became a mentor and source of advice for other Memphis artists including potter Margie Culbertson, who was a loving partner for much of his life. She remembers: "We had a lot of fun together, and he kept me laughing with his acerbic wit, no matter how down either one of us were from time to time. He had an extensive knowledge of history and could talk at length about Memphis and the yellow fever epidemic, the Civil Rights Movement, the Blues, Cotton Carnival, Memphis in May and the evolution of the Beale street Music Festival for whom he volunteered through the years. He had a kind heart and strong ethical core."

Though his life was focused on the arts, Dan was a HUGE sports fan, and adapted to the Memphis sports culture as well as any "foreigner." Along with his love for the New England Patriots and NY Yankees (which reflected his counterintuitive nature), Dan became a huge fan of University of Memphis (State) football and basketball, the AAA Memphis Redbirds and the Memphis Grizzlies. His brother Jonathan remembers them going to the Mets opening day of their 1969 season during Pesach, with sandwiches Mom had prepared on egg-leavened rolls. Though they were underage, she also reminded them that beer is not Kosher for Pesach.

Beth Sholom member Michele Kiel Less remembers, "Dan reminds us of the importance of this wonderful place that we call home. He loved his Broad Street peeps and his Cooper-Young neighborhood. He loved the Memphis Tigers. Dan loved Memphis. His talents and the quirkiness for which he was so he was so recognized and so loved will be deeply missed."

Dan Spector was born in St. Louis on August 25, 1951, and grew up in Farmingdale, NY on Long Island. His father Abraham was an electrical engineer, and mother Dorothy was a librarian. He leaves a sister Rachel Spector Peak of Gilbert, AZ and brother, Jonathan in Israel. Financial gifts in Spector's memory should be directed to Beth Sholom Congregation in Memphis, the Memphis Food Bank, and the Arts Memphis Emergency Fund for local artists and musicians.

Published in The Daily Memphian on Apr. 6, 2020.

catalogue raisonné (click for PDF)