The McKinney Center will be featuring sculptor Jamey Biggs and mixed media artist, Stephen Simmerman. The exhibition opening reception will take place on Friday, June 6, 5:00 – 7:00 pm. The exhibition is free and open to the public and will be up through July 4. The artwork will be on sale that night and throughout the duration of the exhibition.
Jamey Biggs grew up in Summersville, West Virginia. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art and a Bachelor of Science in Art education. He completed an MFA in Ceramics at Indiana State University in 2003. Biggs has instructed Ceramics and Sculpture for 20 years. Jamey has directed the construction of multiple permanent and experimental ceramic kilns while at Concord University.
Jamey has served as the gallery director for the Arthur Butcher Art Gallery in the Alexander Fine Arts Center on the Campus of Concord University since 2004. He has directed the visiting artist program at Concord University providing Athens, West Virginia with free demonstrations by the nations well-known ceramic artists and creating a channel for international exchange.
Jamey’s artwork is primarily ceramic and draws upon themes of Appalachian life through sculpture and utilitarian objects.
These trucks and bulldozers are constructed in earthenware clay using various molding and hand forming techniques. I have settled on the image of the metal toy because it is largely positive, a wide variety of folks have an existing relation to it, and it is not traditionally used as subject matter or imagery for high art. My hope is that the art works presented are truly non-verbal in nature. I want to make work that will instantly draw a viewer in and hold their attention through unexpected pairings.
Images are fluid in terms of their meaning and significance. The material in the truck or in front of the dozer provides me with another possible layer of meaning and context for the truck. I typically try to use that extra layer as an opportunity for play and humor. The toy truck is associated with childhood and childlike impulses. Anything that I put in the truck instantly becomes, by definition, a “truckload”. That transformation is semantic (and silly) but I want the works to have monumental qualities while being as small as possible.
I want the loads to be overwhelming. I want the viewer to rely on their own associations to make sense of those materials, objects, and commodities. I think the playfulness and general mischief will come through the work. The works will convey ideas of generosity, and abundance but I’m okay if a few notions of wastefulness get through as well.
I hope that adults who are well versed in art theory, art history, and criticism can find interest in the sculptures. At the same time, I want the work to appeal to children.
Stephen Simmerman grew up in northeast Tennessee and lived and worked in North Carolina for over ten years. From a young age Stephen has been interested in archaeology, and how art has informed cultures from the translation of the Rosetta Stone to the age of digital apps. Simmerman worked professionally as a graphic designer and editor for five years, before deciding to pursue graduate studies, first in English then in graphic design. He has taught for over twenty years at several schools in the southeast region.
Among Simmerman’s influences and inspirations are Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Norman Rockwell, and Jacob Lawrence. He admires the work of Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns and how they parlayed elements of commercial art into their unique works of art. Stephen’s also a huge fan of early magazine illustrators like N.C. Wyeth and Will Bradley, as well as the German poster designer Lucien Bernhard.
Simmerman’s illustrations are primarily mixed media: acrylic, watercolor, oil pastel, or ink often layered with “found” type. Much of his creative pursuits involves the word play of advertising and its power of persuasion, and he enjoys creating works laced with nostalgia and mysteries of the passage of time. Along with completing a graphic novel in 2016, Simmerman has illustrated two children’s books and his work has been juried into numerous regional and national exhibitions. He currently serves as Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Concord University in West Virginia.
The exhibit is free and open to the public, Monday – Friday 8am – 5pm. For more information you may contact the McKinney Center, 423.753.0562.
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