The Knoxville Museum of Art announces a new contemporary exhibition, Outside In, by Jered Sprecher from January 27 through April 16, 2017.
Sprecher lives in Knoxville and is a professor with the University of Tennessee’s School of Art. He enjoys a growing national reputation as one of the leading representative of a generation of contemporary painters dedicated to the exploration and revitalization of abstraction. He describes himself as a “hunter and gatherer,” pulling his imagery from such disparate sources as wallpaper, graffiti, architecture, cut gemstones, and x-rays.
The Study, 2013. Oil on canvas, 74 x 78 inches
Trees Walking, 2015. Oil on linen, 72 x 60 inches
Outside In reflects the dynamic range of Sprecher’s recent practice in terms of format, scale, imagery, and process. It also includes several new works configured in a provocatively informal manner designed to reference a space that is central to human domestic life since the dawn of time: the living room. The Study (2013), for instance, depicts an abstracted frontal view of a fireplace entrance defined in broad horizontal strokes in an icy palette that presents the original image in a strange new light. The painting reflects the artist’s examination of parallels between ancient domestic traditions in which the fireplace was a mesmerizing light environment that in contemporary life has been replaced by the ubiquitous digital screen.
Sponsors for the exhibition include the National Endowment for the Arts and Emerson Process Management. Media sponsors include Big Wheel, Kurt Zinser Graphic Design, and WBIR-TV.