ACTION PACKED

Anne Beffel, Krista Connerly, Tommy Foster, Charles Goldman, Kevin Hamilton, Christopher Moore, Nathaniel Parsons, Kirsten Strom, Miles Wolfe and Adam Wolpa

Cedar Lorca Nordbye, Curator

Action Packed ran at Delta Axis @ Marshall Arts from March 19th through May 1st, 2004.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Delta Axis @ Marshall Arts will host a lecture on performance art by Wendy Robertson, Professor of Art History at Humboldt State University in California . Following the lecture she will lead round-table discussion with the exhibition artists entitled “Exploring the Current State of the Performative.” The lecture and round table discussion will begin at 2 pm on Saturday, March 20th.

CHARLES GOLDMAN

Charles Goldman received his MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has exhibited widely with solo exhibits in Portland, Oregon, and at the Sculpture Center in New York City. He was also one of nine artists chosen to make site-specific artworks for the re-opening of the World Financial Center in Manhattan. For his ongoing artwork, “The Portrait Project”, he has set up portrait stations on the sidewalks of North American cities where he pays pedestrians $1 to draw his portrait. For the show, Action Packed , he will be showing some of those portraits as well as sculptures that manipulate Memphis telephone books.

ANNE BEFFEL

Anne Beffel was one of nine artists-in-residence invited to install a public art project in the World Financial Center as part of the post-9/11 recovery effort. She installed her project “Apologies” comprised of clear, glycerin soap bars embedded with the words “I'm Sorry” and text panels with stories of apologies offered, witheld, refused and accepted in relation to war, discrimination and disparity.

Beffel's recent solo exhibitions include: “Modifications of the Mundane”, St. John's University, Collegeville, MN and “about”, Cuchifritos Gallery, New York, NY.

TOMMY FOSTER

Tommy Foster is an MFA candidate at the University of Memphis. He has performed several hundred Elvis Weddings and has exhibited his sculptures widely in the Mid-South. For his part in the exhibition he will be leading the out-of-town participants in the exhibition on custom cultural driving-tours of Memphis.

ADAM WOLPA

Adam Wolpa , a Michigan artist, received his MFA in Printmaking from the University of Iowa. Raised in observant Judaism, he now teaches art at the Dutch-Reform Christian college, Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His work for Action Packed will explore overlap between American Christian preaching, performance art and ideas of faith and community. He may be getting a tattoo at the opening reception.

KRISTA CONNERLY

Krista Connerly earned her MFA from Carnegie Mellon University. She makes artwork playing with ideas of intimacy and emotional labor. At her recent exhibition at the Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids, Michigan she involved participants in contemporized “parlor-games” which spilled out of the gallery into the streets.”

NATHANIEL PARSONS

Nathaniel Parsons , a Cleveland “River Town” artist will be creating an “ice-floe” inspired by a recent event when several ice-fisherman found themselves adrift in lake Huron on a dislodged slab of ice. Parsons received his BFA from California College of Arts and Crafts and his in painting from the University of Iowa.

CHRISTOPHER MOORE

Christopher Moore , hailing from Brooklyn is a sculptor who's work centers on ideas of the carnivalesque. He recently carried out residencies at the Blue Mountain Center and Saint Mary's College in Maryland. For the past few years as part of his “Floating World” project, Moore has taken friends out rowing on the East River in New York City in a small boat. He will be exhibiting photographs of these outings as well as other collage drawings.

KRISTEN STROM

Kirsten Strom PhD, teaches art history, writes and records music and has become a bit obsessed with anagrams and palindromes. She will be providing an anagram service for visitors to the exhibition, giving them anagrams of their names.

KEVIN HAMILTON

Kevin Hamilton teaches painting at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. He received his graduate degree from MIT and his work often utilizes “digital-prosthetic devices” to explore issues of public and private action and community. Recently much of his work has examined our relationships to television and mediation.

Delta Axis would like to thank its donors from whom we receive our funding: Greater Memphis Arts Council, Tennessee Arts Commission, the Jeniam Foundation, the Hyde Foundation, as well as the Hohenberg Foundation.