A Sense Of Place
November 11, 2007 - January 27, 2008
Starting November 11, 2007 and running through January 27, 2008 the Guntersville Museum will feature A Sense of Place, an exhibit of new works by artists Clayton Bass and Budd Harris Bishop. Both artists are also experienced museum directors, and thus bring a unique perspective to their work. Their landscapes depict nature at its most beautiful.
Bass is the current Director and CEO of Huntsville Museum of Art in Huntsville, Alabama. He also served as Director of the Walter Anderson Museum in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.
Bishop has been the Executive Director of the Hunter Gallery of Art in Chattanooga, The Columbus Museum of Art in Columbus, Ohio, and is the Director Emeritus of the Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida.
Top Left: "Sky Fall" by Clayton Bass
Top Right: "Flint River Shadows" by Clayton Bass
Bottom Left: "Shore Point in Autumn" by
Budd Harris Bishop
Bottom Right: "Fall Flash " by Budd Harris Bishop
Artist Statements:
Budd Harris Bishop
I am interested in the Upper Cumberland landscape as a painting subject because it is in transition – from an agrarian, rural environment to a more developed (and disturbed) state. This is the moment, for me, to record impressions of what makes the area unique: its quality of light, the contrast of cleared space with wild places, broad bodies of water, and the gentle roll of the land.
I choose to exclude as much evidence as possible of habitation and use – with the exception of the occasional hay roll or grave marker. I’m not so much interested in narrative of the places as the lay of the land. It is my hope that viewers of my work will be able to place themselves in the scene and recall the sense of place, regardless of its actual location.
Clayton Bass
Nature: a wellspring of inspiration.
Observing nature is a sensory journey
connecting impressions, creating a sense of place.
Art: a conversation between eye and hand,
a dialogue between observer and image.
Capturing the transient moment,
expressed on canvas and paper,
to share with others who add
their own imagination and memories.
Nature requires nothing of us, yet we require nature.
Art requires everything of us, to reflect inner and outer realms.
Everything we seek to know of the world surrounds us;
we have only to be still long enough to see it.
Nature as Art: A dance of color, light, and shadow,
that quickens the pulse with thoughts of discovery,
anticipating the vista yet to come.