Calendar of Events

A free reception with the artists will take place on Friday, January 6, from 5:00-9:00 PM and features live music inside the Emporium by Nicholas Horner and Friends. Most of the works will be for sale and may be purchased through the close of the exhibition by visiting in person or the online shop at www.knoxalliance.store.

Buckle up all you would-be cosmic explorers! This new exhibition fuses together cutting-edge NASA data with one of the oldest human endeavors, the carving of wood. Planetary geoscientist Robert Jacobsen and local artist Scott Rennie combine their expertise to reveal the water-carved surface of Mars.

Taken from the multi-billion-year history of the Red Planet, these six pieces chronicle the history of water on Mars. This hydraulic evolution is both dramatic and tragic, beginning first with widespread river valleys, deltas and crater lakes, later transitioning to gargantuan floods, and eventually leaving us only with craterside trickles remaining today.

To present this history, native hardwoods and quality resins were selected and then shaped using a CNC machine. The result is several beautiful works of art: distillations of extra-terrestrial nature designed to tell a fascinating 21st-century story of hydraulic evolution in faraway places.

Robert Jacobsen: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=x0P1AEIAAAAJ
Scott Rennie: Instagram @woodgrainterrain

The Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, in downtown Knoxville. Hours: Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM and Saturday, January 28 only, 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM. Please note, the Emporium will be closed Monday, January 16, for the holiday. For more information, please see www.knoxalliance.com or call (865) 523-7543.