The Fine Arts Gallery's current exhibit, "American Reflections: Recent Works by Kate McSpadden" is the fastest exhibit to ever sell out the gallery. McSpadden, who earned her B.A. from Vanderbilt in 2005, opened her exhibit Jan. 11.
Upon graduation, McSpadden was bestowed with the Margaret Stonewall Wooldridge Hamblet Award, and earned a $20,000 grant. The award is selected annually by a panel of outside jurors and is open to graduating seniors each spring. The grant is traditionally used for travel and study, and culminates in an exhibit at the Fine Arts Gallery. McSpadden decided to use her grant to travel around the country painting pieces that would inevitably become her "American Reflections" exhibit at the Fine Arts Gallery.
Throughout "American Reflections," McSpadden takes the observer through her year of rural travel and exploration. Many of the pieces are painted from a roadside point of view, and the streaked brushstrokes make the viewer feel as if they could be seeing the paintings from the back seat of a motorcycle. "Marathon" shows a roadside trailer and a stretch of highway, while "Dryden" gives us a picture of an old downtown theatre. The beautiful yet haunting "Ninth Ward" uses intense turquoise coloring and a close-up viewpoint to depict the destruction of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The piece became the first painting to sell in a show that would set a new standard for the Fine Arts Gallery.
Amy Pottier, the gallery's assistant curator, explained that McSpadden wanted to paint traditional American locales in a modern medium, showing how urban, rural and natural surroundings are changing. McSpadden wanted to explore how these landscapes, long considered quintessential "Americana" images, can be interpreted from subjective viewpoints.
"What makes Kate's work recognizably 'modern,' I would say, has to do with her brushwork, which is sometimes loose and expressive, and at other times, reinforces an underlying compositional structure," Pottier said.
"American Reflections" will be displayed at the Fine Arts Gallery until Feb. 15. For more information on McSpadden's work or the gallery, please visit the website.
