Artist Bill Rutherfoord to Speak at Art @ Happy Hour, Oct. 11

Bill Rutherfoord in his studio with Wunderkammer (2008–2013, 70 x 74 inches, oil on canvas). Photo Courtesy of Taubman Museum of Art.

Artist Bill Rutherfoord will lead a seated gallery talk on his exhibit Allegory of No Region during Art @ Happy Hour on Thursday, October 11, 2018 from 5 – 7 pm at Piedmont Arts.

Rutherfoord’s talk will begin at 5:30 pm. Complimentary refreshments and an open bar will be available during the admission free event.

The scion of a storied Virginia family, Rutherfoord earned a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He first exhibited in New York in 1984 and over the years has been included in gallery and traveling exhibitions alongside artists such as Rodney Allan Greenblat, Keiko Bonk, Raymond Pettibon, William Eggleston and William Christenberry.

Allegory of No Region is the culmination of eight years of concentrated labor producing a massive painting and sculptural project. Eleven large-scale, colorful, and densely populated paintings invite the viewer into a complex interweaving of narrative, symbol, and form. Inspiration is drawn from artistic and literary figures as divergent as Jean Cocteau, Jasper Johns, and Joel Chandler Harris, while historical references extend from Jamestown to Fort Sumter to the BP Gulf oil disaster. The reclaimed character Brer Rabbit leads the viewer on an epic journey across three centuries of heroism and trickery, both comic and tragic, ultimately creating historical and contemporary allegories and conundrums that lead to an investigation of the very nature of identity, culture and history – personal and public, regional and national, high and low.

Bill Rutherfoord: Allegory of No Region has been organized by the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, Virginia.

Works by Chris Frazier will also be on display in the Lynwood Artists Gallery. Frazier uses recycled and reclaimed materials to create functional works of art. He has a Bachelor’s of Arts degree from the Savannah College of Art and Design and a Master’s degree in education from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Frazier teaches art at Meadow View Elementary School in Henry County, Virginia.

Bill Rutherfoord: Allegory of No Region and Works by Chris Frazier will be on display at Piedmont Arts through October 13, 2018. Admission is free.