From Bugs to the Bizarre, Art Exhibition by Joe MacGown at Giles Gallery, Mississippi State University

My exhibition at Giles Gallery in the Architecture Dept. on the Mississippi State University campus is now up and will remain until October 17th.  There will be an opening reception on Monday, October 1st at 5 pm at the Gallery. Some refreshments will be provided by the folks hosting the show. I will be at the opening to talk about the works and will be glad to answer any and all questions.

I was featured on the front page of the Starkville Daily News today for this exhibition. Read the wonderful article by Matt Crane with photos by Leilani Salter online at: http://www.starkvilledailynews.com/node/11414

In other news, I am almost finished with a pretty cool colored ink and pen piece done on primed birch plywood that I started long ago! Soon. The end is in sight. Maybe. Also, I started a collaborative drawing with Elle Gottzi, a crazy cool, semi-blue haired, tattooed and well-pierced, Ukranian hippie art chic now living in Newfoundland (http://ellegottzi.deviantart.com/). Also about to start another one with Sander Jansen (http://www.sanderjansen.net/ ). Of course, each of them are working on a piece for me to finish up as well. So, looks like I have some stuff to do.  

MacGown Solo Art Exhibit coming up at MSU

I will be having a smallish one man show at the Giles Gallery in the Architecture Dept at Mississippi State University from 28 Sept to 17 Oct. 2012. Opening reception will be at 5 pm on Oct. 1st. Will have some bug drawings and some weird stuff. Come on out and see the bridge between scientific illustration and chaotic weirdness.

Also note the great lineup of guest lecturers and other exhibiters for the fall semester!

Upcoming Group Show in Amsterdam and Judging the Market Street Festival

I just sent off some artwork to Amsterdam. Two collaborative pieces, "The Abyss of the Mind" and Just West of Eden" that I did with Marcel Bakker will be included in the show.  (http://www.kulter.nl/CADVRE_EXQUIS.html ). For the Abyss piece, Marcel applied paint to paper and mailed the image to me. I printed it on drawing paper, then did detailed ink work on the left side, then sent it back to him, and he completed the right side. For 'Just West of Eden", I did the color, mailed it to Marcel, he applied fine ink work randomly on the drawing. He mailed it to me and I finished it up. Pretty cool. Marcel ins an awesome artist from the Netherlands. It was great to work with him. We also did another collaboration called "The Garden of Unearthly Delights". This one was done with ink in the traditional exquisite corpse tradition with Marcel doing the top half of the drawing, then covering it with heavy paper except for a one inch strip, then mailing me the image to complete the bottom half with only the one inch strip to go by. Then, I pulled the cover off and saw this marvelous drawing!

The Abyss of the Mind

Just West of Eden 

The Garden of Unearthly Delights 

In other news, I will be judging the Market Street Juried Art Competition next weekend in Columbus, MS. Looking forward to seeing what the entries look like! I have never entered this competition and was planning on submitting some pieces for it, but this should be fun too. And, I get paid a little bit for doing it. 

features on my art coming up.

Have been piddling around with the art lately, not getting a lot done, but getting parts of some things done. Life has become so busy!!!! But, even so, sold a few prints this past month, both straight from me and also from my Deviant Art and Fine Art America accounts. So, thats pretty sweet. Trying to finish up something for the Cotton District Arts Festival held in mid April, but the early March deadline is fast approaching and I don't know if I will make it. That would suck, as I have been lucky enough to win some money the last few years!

Coincidently, I was interviewed about my art by a new newspaper called The Real Story, based out of Columbus, MS and a fashion/arts magazine called Town and Gown. In addition to those interviews, some of my art will be featured in the Mississippi Journal for Sustainable Living [more info about this group at: http://www.ggsim.org/ ]. All of these interviews and features should be coming out in the March issue, so I guess we will see how that goes.  Of the three, the Town and Gown magazine is certainly the most upscale. Maybe some weird wealthy person will read about me and decide to become my patron! I wish. The idea of sitting around doing art fulltime is very appealing. I feel confident that the story will be well done, as it is being written by Joe Lee, a Mississippi novelist out of Jackson, MS. I actually went to high school with Joe, so its cool that he is writing the article, although it was not his idea. Leilani Salter, editor of the Starkville Daily and Town and Gown, is also a great photographer, and she actually came out to my studio to take photos of me in my element.  She brought an employee named Claire with her, and they hung out for a while shooting pictures and asking questions. It was wonderful talking with both of them about art. And, believe me, Leilani is an artist when it come to photography. In fact, she had a photography exhibit up at the Depot Gallery following my show there. So, yeah, a novelist is writing the article and a professional photographer who is in her own right a great writer and editor are doing this story! Can't ask for much more than that!!! It was weird to have them out at the house only two days after the writer and photographer from The Real Story had been there too. I also enjoyed talking to them and am curious to see where they go with the story. 

Videos of Manic Depression and Self Searching on Youtube

I made videos of two of my drawings, Manic Depression and Self Searching,  and loaded them on Youtube the other day. In both cases, I panned across the surface of each piece slowly to allow the viewer to see the detail more closely. For the Manic Depression video, I added some background music that I made up on the spot and played on my guitar. While I am not really a musician, I think the guitar that I recorded for this conveys the feeling of the artwork. For the Self Searching video, my son Joseph made up some keyboard music, which I added to the video.  Anyway, the videos are embedded below, and can also be accessed by clicking the links above.

Sensorium Project in Australia

I was invited to be a part of the Sensorium Project in Australia (http://sensorium.net.au/). This project is a fusion of art and science and will feature visionary artists from around the world. Artwork, both physical and projected, will be exhibited in mobile geodesic dome that will travel Australia. Currently, my involvement will include some of my artwork being projected inside the dome. I have an artist's page on the Sensorium web site at: http://sensorium.net.au/artists/joe-macgown

Energy Art Spectrum 2011 - Reception

The reception for the Energy Art Spectrum 2011 exhibition was held from 6-8 pm on Saturday 29 October 2011 at the Meridian Museum of Art in Meridian, MS. As this was an international show, it was difficult for members from other regions of the world to attend, and I was the only representative from the group. The crowd was not huge, but the folks that attended were treated to a great exhibition, and they generally seemed to appreciate the artwork. In fact, most of the viewers stayed for the entire two hour period. At 7 pm, museum director Kate Cherry gave a talk about the show, and following her talk, I gave a talk about the Energy Art Movement and how it related to my artwork. A video of Kate and my talk is available on Youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdOcDi-qUoQ&feature=related, a video of my talk is available on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2GXOuAPCv0, and a video showing viewers at the reception can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG1Y4z9CFaM&feature=related.

Some photos from the show