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Peter Jones: Contemporary Realist Retrospective X
Peter Jones: Contemporary Realist Retrospective
November 21, 2024 – February 1, 2025
On View: November 21, 2024 – February 1, 2025
Public Reception: November 21, 2024 5:30 – 7:30PM
Artist Statement:
“I work in oil on panel or canvas, preferably from life, as the nuances of light captured by the human eye exceed the capability of a single photographic exposure. I find this facilitates a more painterly approach. I believe that still life narratives can be contemporary and not just a reflection of nostalgia for a vanished past. A lemon may have symbolized transience in a Dutch still life, but in my work, it can play a variety of formal and domestic roles in addition to being a code for the 17th century. The same objects recur in in different roles, and the table becomes a stage, or, in postmodern terms, a field of signs and signifiers. Still lifes provide endless opportunities within a studio, while plein aire landscape painting requires travel. Landscape is my most abstract work, with a direct response to an environment. For forty years, I painted largely plein aire landscapes in trips to Italy and Vermont; however, since 2019 my continuing interest in photography and my use of a new limited palette has led to my current series of photo-based downtown landscapes, undertaken during the COVID shutdown. My work is usually small in scale, as I like the intimacy of a small painting as well as the enhanced visual weight of the individual objects. The brushstrokes are also more apparent in a small picture, counting for even more, as does the frame that completes the piece—a lesson I learned from Robert Kulicke, whose small still life paintings had a strong impression on me. He also taught me frame design, construction, and finishing techniques, as well as his concept of “eclectic framing”—the use of historical designs in conjunction with contemporary work.”
About the Artist:
Peter Jones is a figurative painter with a deep respect for the abstract accomplishments of the 20th Century. He grew up in the artists’ community of Woodstock, New York, where his mother painted portraits and his father painted mural commissions for the Federal Government projects during the Depression. He received his MFA from the University of Iowa in 1969, and focused on still life painting in the early 70s during his first teaching experience at Sullins College. Following seven years as art director of Vermont Life Magazine he came to Louisiana Tech in 1980, and taught there for 31 years. During that period he had two one-man shows at A.M Adler Fine Arts in New York City, and one-man shows at Amherst College and in Woodstock, New York, Charleston, West Virginia, Charleston, South Carolina, and Charlottesville, Virginia. He had a 25 year retrospective in Ruston in 2005 and an exhibition of still lifes at the Alexandria Museum in 2006. Since his retirement he has continued to exhibit still lifes and landscapes in group shows in Louisiana and national juried shows. In 2023 he had a retrospective exhibition at ULM’s Bry Gallery.
Image:
Gardenias with Peach in Hand
(Ovid’s Judgement of Paris)
Kulicke cast Louis XIII reproduction frame
2005
Upcoming Exhibitions
62nd Annual Juried Competition
Feb 20 - May 3, 2025
Sponsored by
The Northeast Louisiana Arts Council
Exhibition on view Feb 20 – May 3, 2025
Public Reception: TBD
About the Juror
Annemarie Sawkins, PhD, is a Milwaukee-based independent curator, who has curated several exhibitions for the Masur Museum of Art including Kogyo: Japanese Woodblock Prints (2022), Treasures of Art Nouveau (2019) and Afghan War Rugs: The Modern Art of Central Asia (2018). Her more recent projects include Profound Prints: Art by Exceptional Women at the Hilliard Art Museum and A Creative Place at the Trout Museum of Art. From 1999 to 2012, she was a curator at the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University. A frequent juror and portfolio reviewer, Annemarie Sawkins has a MA and PhD in Art/Architectural History from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
About the Exhibition
The Masur Museum of Art’s Annual Juried Competition showcases contemporary artists throughout the United States of America working in any medium. First started in 1964, the Annual Juried Competition is the Masur Museum’s longest-running tradition and one of its best-reviewed exhibitions each year. Annually, 700-1000 recent artworks are submitted by artists all over the nation, in all styles and media. The Masur Museum is proud to offer cash awards totaling $3,200.
Submissions open October 1, 2024
Swimming in the Sky: Cliff Tresner
August 21, 2025 – November 1, 2025
Clifford Tresner attended Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN, and earned a BFA in Sculpture/Woodworking in 1990. He received his MFA from The University of Mississippi in Oxford in 1994.
Mr. Tresner began his teaching career in earnest in 1997 as an assistant professor of art, tenure track at the University of Louisiana, Monroe, LA, where he taught all levels of sculpture and drawing. Mr. Tresner moved to teaching painting and drawing in 2013. He has held many positions over his career, most recently as the William D. Hammond Endowed Professor of Liberal Arts, 2017 – 2020 and the Art Program Coordinator at the University of Louisiana Monroe.
Supported by a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council, as administered by the Northeast Louisiana Arts Council. Funding has also been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Past Exhibitions
61st Annual Juried Competition
Feb 21 - May 4, 2024
Sponsored by The Northeast Louisiana Arts Council
Juror: Kerry Inman, Inman Gallery of Houston, TX
Exhibition on view Feb 22 – May 4, 2024
Public Reception: March 21, 2024 from 5:30 – 7:30 PM
About the Exhibition
The Masur Museum of Art’s Annual Juried Competition showcases contemporary artists throughout the United States of America working in any medium. First started in 1964, the Annual Juried Competition is the Masur Museum’s longest-running tradition and one of its best-reviewed exhibitions each year. Annually, 700-1000 recent artworks are submitted by artists all over the nation, in all styles and media. The Masur Museum is proud to offer cash awards totaling $3,200.
Announcing this year’s guest juror: Kerry Inman
Kerry Inman is the owner and director of Inman Gallery in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1990, the gallery has hosted over 200 exhibitions in its 33-year history. The gallery represents emerging and established artists with a connection to Texas, as well as the estate of Texas modernist Dorothy Antoinette (Toni) LaSelle. Kerry also serves on the board of the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston.
Accepted 61st Juried Competition Artists
Image:
Edgar Cano-Lopez, Chrome Dance (Best in Show)
Blanket Songs: John Hitchcock
November 28, 2023 - February 3, 2024
November 28, 2023 – February 3, 2024
Public Reception: Thursday, January 25, 5:30 – 7:30 pm
Artist’s Talk: 6:30 pm
Live Musical Performance by Hitchcock throughout the night
John Hitchcock is a Wisconsin-based artist and musician of Comanche, Kiowa, and Northern European descent. Raised in Oklahoma on Comanche Tribal lands, he draws on his personal history to create works that fuse frenetic abstraction with layered allusions to indigenous traditions. He earned his MFA in printmaking and photography at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas and received his BFA from Cameron University, Lawton, Oklahoma.
Blanket Songs stands as an immersive testament to the intersection of tradition and innovation, weaving together a rich tapestry of media to narrate a deeply personal story rooted in indigenous heritage. Drawing inspiration from the cultural practices of Comanche and Kiowa ancestry, this installation is an amalgamation of traditional techniques – screen printing, lithography, assemblage, neon, audio, video, and textiles – harmoniously converging to honor the legacy of the artist’s grandparents.
This program is funded under a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this exhibition do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The Unchosen Ones: RJ Kern
November 7 - December 22, 2023
The Unchosen Ones: Portraits of an American Pastoral, is an interdisciplinary installation of documentary photography showcasing relationships between agricultural youth and animals in the Midwest US. “The Unchosen Ones” project received international recognition, which reflects a universal appeal. The work debuted as a feature in National Geographic magazine (November 2017) and has been exhibited as solo exhibitions in the Plains Art Museum and the Griffin Museum of Photography.
The Unchosen Ones depicts the bloom of youth and the mettle of the kids who grow up on farms, reminding us how resilient children can be when confronted with life’s inevitable disappointments. The formal quality of the lighting and setting endow these young people with a gravitas beyond their years, revealing self-direction dedication in some, and in others, perhaps, the pressures of traditions imposed upon them. The portraits capture a particular America, a rural world, and a time in life when the layered emotions of youth are laid bare.
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