Published: April 24, 2008 01:53 am            

New and retrospective artwork featured in solo exhibit at Meridian Museum of Art

The new exhibit at the Meridian Museum of Art features recent and career-spanning work by Meridian artist and Meridian Community College art instructor John Marshall. The Museum will host a reception for the exhibit this Saturday, April 26, from 6 p.m.-8 p.m., with a gallery talk at 6:45 p.m. The reception at the downtown Museum is free and open to the public.

Talented artist and teacher John Marshall is a fixture in the Meridian art community, a former director of the Meridian Museum of Art (1986-1989), and an artist whose work has been exhibited and awarded throughout the Southeast. John received his BFA from Middle Tennessee State University and his MFA from the University of North Carolina. He served as the Curator at Weatherspoon Art Gallery (University of North Carolina) before becoming director of the Meridian Museum of Art, and has taught at Meridian Community College since 1986, where he now serves as Coordinator of the Art Department, Art Instructor, and Gallery Curator.

John’s artwork has been featured in solo and group shows across the country, including sites such as the Sawtooth Gallery (Winston-Salem, N.C.), the Henri Gallery (Washington, D.C.), the ArtWave Competition (Gulfport), the Kansas Outdoor Sculpture Exhibit, the Weatherspoon Art Gallery (N.C.), Millsaps College Gallery, Birmingham-Southern College Art Gallery, Space One-Eleven Gallery (Birmingham), the Walter Anderson Museum of Art, the Lauren Rogers Museum, Middle Tennessee State University, the Winfield Gallery (Gulfport), Tusculum College Gallery (Greeneville, Tenn.), the Coleman Art Center (York, Ala.), Elua Bass Gallery (Ellisville), the Sylvia Schmidt Gallery (New Orleans), the Marie Hull Gallery (Jackson), and our own Meridian Museum of Art.



Artist’s statement

– John Marshall



“Statements about my art change as rapidly as the series of paintings and mixed media works that I create. I do not try to conform to “change”, but rather adopt its possibilities in the creating of art. In my experiences as an artist, I have adopted, recognized and accepted “change” as a means of self-expression. And through art, I visually record the events that shape and mold me into the person I have grown to become.

“My art is never about one thing, but rather many things. Each series of works that I create reveals the truths about what I believe or have come to respect. In recent years, my work has been about domestic languages [images of society], inner solitude, quiet comments on social and global issues in mixed media works and more recently concerns about changing attitudes in just “what is art anymore” and is there anything that is not.

“I think of myself as an explorer of the visual world using whatever medium necessary to reveal truths and ideas. As a painter, I am interested in new media and discovering new methods and techniques to create my art while manifesting my interests and discoveries in visual terms. This exhibit is more or less a retrospective which contains excerpts of a variety of series that I have produced. Some of the works are small pastels and oils which deal with quiet comments on universal concerns of “change”. This has become an exploration of color disassociation with real life concerns where color symbolizes the disguise of social and universal truths. This series has also incorporated some mixed media and sculptural relief. Other works in this exhibit feature images from my earliest beginnings as an unknowingly, struggling immature artist spanning nearly 30 years of my life.

“Art has been a constant exploration and investigation of ideas. It has been the source of great fulfillment and pleasure in my changing life. It is my hope and desire that my work provides the same for others that they might embrace “change” with enthusiasm and curiosity and find hope and fulfillment in visual imagery.”

The exhibit by John Marshall will remain on display at the Museum through May 31. The Museum is located at 628 25th Ave., in downtown Meridian, and is open Tuesday-Sunday, from 1 p.m.-5 p.m. Admission to the Museum is free. For more information, call (601) 693-1501, e-mail MeridianMuseum@aol.com, or visit MeridianMuseum.org.



This article was submitted by the Meridian Museum of Art

        

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