Currents: Women Artists from the KMA Collection

This exhibition, a special edition of the KMA’s permanent installation Currents: Recent Art from East Tennessee and Beyond, pays tribute to contemporary women artists represented in the collection of the Knoxville Museum of Art. This show and Women Artists: Highlights from the Hunter Museum of American Art (one floor up) document what two important Tennessee cultural organizations are doing to support and empower women artists.

Like the Hunter, the KMA has actively sought to acquire outstanding works by women, who have long lagged behind their male counterparts when it comes to museum-level recognition. The selection on view reflects the broad technical and aesthetic range found in contemporary art by women. A mixed media painting on wooden sections by Alison Moritsugu conveys a monumental landscape, expansive yet incomplete.  Nancy Rubins elevates graphite drawing into a large sculptural construction apparently shaped by violent forces. British artist Marilène Oliver constructs provocative portraits of her family in the form of acrylic sheets imprinted with digital medical scans.  Patty Chang uses water and mirrors to transform her own image taken in a Belgian church into a complex photographic work fragmented by harsh angles and provocative reflections. In her video Joan of Arc, Alex McQuilkin responds to Maria Falconetti’s memorable lead role in the legendary 1928 French silent film by Carl Dreyer, and to the film’s themes of adolescent desire, faith, and suffering. These and other selected works call overdue attention to women’s significant role in reshaping the contemporary art landscape.

The artists featured in this exhibition are Patty Chang, Janet Fish, Marcia Goldenstein, Michelle Grabner, EJ Hauser, Julie Heffernan, Jean Hess, Kate Katomski, Karen LaMonte, Pam Longobardi, Lauren Luloff, Alex McQuilkin, Alison Mortisugu, Althea Murphy-Price, Marilène Oliver, Amy Pleasant, Sumi Putman, Nancy Rubins, Tommie Rush, Denise Stewart-Sanabria, Jemima Stehli, and Toots Zynsky.

Organized by the Knoxville Museum of Art.

Presenting Sponsor
The Frank and Virginia Rogers Foundation

Masters Sponsor
The Guild of the KMA

Sustaining Sponsors
Pandy Anderson
Marty Begalla
Mary Ellen Brewington & Nell Kedrow
Molly Joy
Vicki Kinser
Alexandra Rosen

Benefactor Sponsors
Mary Hale Corkran
Allison Lederer
Brenda Madigan
Townes Osborn
Hei Park
KMA in honor of Barbara Apking and Karen Mann

Patron Sponsors
Mardel Fehrenbach
Lane Hays
Sherri Lee in memory of Sarah Stowers and Glady Faires
Sheena McCall
Geri Muse in memory of Amanda Muse Neuhoff
Nancy Sharp Voith & Kenneth A. Stark in honor of my artist sister, M J Sharp

Friends
Sandi Burdick in memory of Adelia Armstrong Lutz
Barbara M. Cook
Judy Doyle in memory of Lynn Irwin
Susan French
Dana Headden
Cathy Hill in honor of Barbara Bernstein

This project (was/is) supported, in whole or in part, by the federal award number SLFRP5534 awarded to the State of Tennessee by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.