Calendar of Events

A free reception with the artists will take place on Friday, November 5, from 5:00-9:00 PM and features local musicians Abby Fisher, Nicholas Eric Horner, Domino Ensemble, Frou-Frou Foxes, and Tinca Tinca.

Shaping Maternal Lineage showcases my newest painted paper collage work. Having worked as a collage artist for years, this collection of cut paper work reveals a significant shift in my process and the resulting artwork. From my initial thoughts conceptualizing this show, I let the imagery reveal itself to me, instead of seeking out a theme or subject matter to focus on. Listening to that imagery, and therefore letting my intuition guide me, I became surrounded by a trove of lush velvety green, bright florals, and obscure kitchen tools. At first it seemed the connecting thread of this imagery was my maternal grandmother’s kitchen, but a deeper examination of these images that kept appearing revealed a deeper connection with my own mother’s kitchen, and a realization of the beauty and love passed down through simple, often uncelebrated, habits: trimming stems at the sink for the large vase filled perennially with cut flowers, lining the window sills with African violets, and meticulously chopping, sifting, grating, stirring, and perfecting each savory and sweet offering of nourishment.

After receiving degrees in English Literature and Art History, a love of storytelling and visual imagery led Lesley Eaton to pursue an MFA in illustration from Savannah College of Art and Design. After a brief detour through Georgia, she returned to Tennessee and has called Knoxville home for the past fourteen years. She has worked as an illustrator and collage artist and has recently begun exploring paint as a more expressive medium. However, she is always called back to painting and cutting up papers and considers collage a second language. She is drawn to the intuitiveness of moving cutout shapes around a canvas and loves the juxtaposition of expressively painted paper with sharp crisp edges of cut paper. Lesley and her husband have taken on their largest creative endeavor to date and are finishing up restoring a 178-year-old home in East TN while raising their four children, all of whom have been proficient with scissors from a young age. When she’s not creating, playing, or driving carpool, she likes to dream about their one-day garden and get her feet in a cold mountain stream as often as possible.

www.lesleyeaton.com
Instagram: @lesleyeatonart

Lesley Eaton’s collage work is featured as part of the Kolaj LIVE Knoxville, November 5-7, based at the Knoxville Museum of Art. This weekend-long event brings together artists, curators, and writers for a weekend of collage making, slideshows, exhibition visits, and storytelling that deepens our understanding of collage as a medium, a genre, a community, and a 21st century movement. www.kolajinstitute.org/kolaj-live-knoxville.html

The exhibitions are on display at the Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, in downtown Knoxville. The Emporium is open to the public Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM and Saturday, 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM. Please note, the Emporium will be closed Wednesday-Saturday, November 24-27, for the holidays. For more information, please see www.knoxalliance.com or call (865) 523-7543.