May 2016: The Dubious Luxury of Ordinary Men
The Harrison Center for the Arts is proud to present “The Dubious Luxury of Ordinary Men,” new work by Philip Campbell opening Friday, May 6 with an artist reception from 6 to 10pm. Campbell has been an integral part of the Indianapolis art scene for more than 25 years as an exhibiting artist and a driving force behind several of Indy’s best known studio centers including the Faris Building, the Murphy Art Center and the Indy Indie Artist Colony. Campbell made news last year with his groundbreaking exhibit, “My Catfish Friend,” the centerpiece of which was a 22.5 by 11.5 foot hand-carved installation that was displayed locally at IMOCA and in Grand Rapids, MI at ArtPrize.
As in “My Catfish Friend", Campbell’s new work incorporates allegorical characters into the pieces to tell real stories. He describes himself "as a painter, not a sculptor or woodworker" who does his underpainting in wood “with a chisel to add depth, shape and texture that you can touch.” Campbell, an Arts Council Creative Renewal Fellow and recipient of a NUVO Cultural Leadership Award, has had worked exhibited throughout the United States and is collected around the world.
The City Gallery features plein air painter Josh Rush’s RacePlace: A series of city-based paintings. In this exhibit, Rush, who studied at Savannah College of Art and Design, creates a montage of Indianapolis imagery at the time of its Bicentennial.
Autumn Keller transforms Gallery No. 2 with #perfect (41,338,883+). With nature as her medium, Autumn Keller sees art in buds and berries, in wild vines of bittersweet and trumpet creeper, and in woody twigs and tendrils stripped of their greenery to show their sculptural shape. Autumn brings her sensibility as a visual artist to her work. She attended the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland, and graduated from Herron School of Art and Design where she concentrated on painting, printmaking and art history. She admired the voluminous still life flower compositions of such Dutch and Flemish masters as Vermeer, Utrecht and Rachel Ruysch that influence her floral design.
In the Gallery Annex is Anne Cleary’s Look up! Look up! Internal Starlight: Images of the Interior. Music is a heavy influence in Cleary's paintings which also refer in large part to the natural world, as well as urban environments. They are abstract images, predominately, that deal with the human condition and notions that exist in the mind’s eye.
In Hank & Dolly’s Gallery, John Sherman and Mayowa Tomori take us on a journey on one of the busiest and most important streets in Indianapolis history with Looking Up College Avenue, A Historic Treasure Hunt.
The 2nd Mother Artist Market takes place in the Underground. The Mother Artist Market is one of the many ways that the Mother Artist Project (MAP) seeks to promote women in the arts. The market, complete with art, jewelry, pottery, live music, flowers, and a variety of other handcrafted items all made by mother artists, provides a unique blend of community for women seeking to do what they love as they raise children they love.
Throughout the building, the Harrison Center’s 36 studio artists open their doors.
Also that night: The kickoff for 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500 Porch Parties will take place under the big tent outside the City Gallery with food trucks, live music from Ray Wyatt and Jay Elliot, vintage race cars, appearances by local celebrities and original works by Indianapolis artists.
Indiana Humanities will host a poetry reading in honor of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” during the May 6 Porch Party. The Official Poet of the 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500 and members of the “field of 33” honorable mention poets will read aloud their award-winning poems in celebration of the Month of May. The event will take place from 6:30 – 8 p.m. and is free and open to the public. Attendees will enjoy appetizers, libations and a look at pieces from the Arts Council of Indianapolis’ “Welcome Race Fans” exhibit.
The art hangs through May 27.
With support from: the 100th Running of the Indy 500/500 Festival, the Arts Council of Indianapolis and the City of Indianapolis, the Indiana Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts, Christel DeHaan Family Foundation, Allen Whitehill Clowes Foundation, the Indianapolis Foundation, Sun King Brewery, and Amy McAdams Design.
Member, IDADA (Indianapolis Downtown Artists and Dealers Association),www.idada.org