Five University of Memphis art students are having the opening reception for their Bachelor of Fine Arts show “Pieces of a Whole” tonight. The show is a requirement for graduation, and the students were responsible for planning and organizing the exhibit.
Justin Fox Burchs, Gray Clawson, Christian Linville, Anastasia Laurenzi and Kelley J. White are the five students showing their work and getting ready to graduate.
Burchs will be showing his social documentary photographs, which are all in color. He has been photographing the inside of Memphis area churches, synagogues and other places of worship for the past two years.
The students renovated the space at 500 South Second St. for the exhibit, Burchs said.
“We’ve gone the extra mile,” Burchs said. “We want it to be fun, not stuffy, like a lot of art openings can be.”
Clawson will be showing landscape photography and poetry. His photographs are of old growth forests, where he focused on the trees. He said he’s spent the past three semesters driving to forests up to about eight hours away from Memphis, including areas in Illinois, Mississippi, Alabama and Kentucky. Clawson said the poetry is in the same frame as the photograph, which is a new experience for him.
Getting ready for the show has been very stressful, Clawson said, and he is just now catching up on his sleep after finishing up at three a.m. yesterday.
Linville will be showing her multiple exposure photography. She said her black and white photographs contrast Native American life from the 1800s with life today, emphasizing themes such as sex and violence.
“They show how we deal with a lot differently today than we used to,” Linville said.
Laurenzi will be showing her conceptual photography and sculpture, and White will be showing portrait photography.
Linville said getting the show together was a lot of work, and that everyone in the group got certain jobs. The students got some guidance from the dean of the art department, James Jackson, who they met with a few times over the semester. The students also have committees of three professors who they met with to discuss their work.
“I’m nervous,” Linville said. “This a debut kind of thing. We’ve been working towards this the whole time.”
The reception tomorrow night takes place from 7- 11 p.m. and refreshments, from Mojo’s — a Mediterranean restaurant near campus — will be served.
