Future Now - Mid-State Art Majors Preview at the Frist

In yet another artistic first for Middle Tennessee, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts is featuring an exhibition of some 80 works by area college and university art students. Eclecticism meets imagination and high quality work at Future/Now: Mid-State Art Majors, an exhibition showcasing some of Middle Tennessee's best new up and coming artists, with the works selected by faculty members from the art departments of the schools represented.

Students from Watkins College of Art, Belmont University, Middle Tennessee State University, Austin Peay State University, Fisk University, Lipscomb University, Appalachian Center for Craft-Tennessee Tech, Vanderbilt University, and Tennessee State University are represented in the exhibition, which is open through December 30th.

The press opening for the exhibit was attended by members of several local media sources, as well as by media department representatives of the various universities themselves.
“This exhibition has so many facets to it,” said Ellen Jones Pryor, the Frist Center’s director of communications, as she greeted visitors. “And this is such an important exhibition, not just for the students, but for our entire community.” Mark Scala, the chief curator for the Frist Center, led the opening press tour through several of the Center’s upper-level galleries, where the works were grouped in pairs by school in each room.

“There’s a great sense of ingenuity and innovation that many of these works exhibit,” Scala said, and his words rang true. Nearly every form of media imaginable has been used in these works, from traditional paint on canvas and wood sculpture to computer-aided graphic design and computer animation. There’s even a work done with prints of people on several rolls of toilet paper, and another utilizing a functional turntable needle playing a grain of rice, mounted atop a decorative wooden enclosure housing speakers that actually broadcast the sound of the needle on the rice.

Future/Now: Mid-State Art Majors not only provides students and faculty with a first-hand understanding of the role that the museum plays as an intermediary between artists and the public, it also celebrates the breadth and diversity of art training programs throughout the Middle Tennessee region. Admission to the Frist Center will be free of charge for all college students with ID during the period of this exhibition.

About the Frist:
The Frist Center for the Visual Arts, located at 919 Broadway in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, is an art exhibition center dedicated to presenting the finest visual art from local, regional, national and international sources in a program of changing exhibitions.

Article Written & Submitted by Rick Moore