Exhibitions

SECOND FRIDAY: BUTLER, GOLDENSTEIN, RIESING, RECENT WORK

The Central Collective / 923 N. Central St. September 8, 2017 - September 8, 2017

David Butler
Marcia Goldenstein
Thomas Riesing

From the artists: We came up with the idea of exhibiting together since we are artists who each approach landscape with different media, variety of images, and from very personal approaches. Goldenstein and Riesing both have a long history of painting the landscape; from panoramas, dominating skies, night images, to finely represented dense trees. Butler comes at it from an art historical background finding images in urban Italian architecture. Each finds inspiration in the world around us through travel or by analyzing the world close to home. The show will have prints, drawings and paintings.


David Butler joined the Knoxville Museum of Art as executive director in 2006 after serving as the director of the Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University, the Swope Art Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana, and the Emerson Gallery at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Art History in 1976 and a Master’s degree in Art History in 1980, both from Florida State University. He received his Ph.D. in Art History with concentration on seventeenth-century Italian art and architecture from Washington University in 1991. Butler is past president of the Southeastern Museums Conference, and past chair of the Knox County Historic Zoning Commission.

Marcia Goldenstein received her MFA degree in Painting and Drawing from the University of Nebraska. She has been a visiting artist at the National Academy of Fine Arts, Bratislava, Slovakia; Sichuan University, Chengdu, China; Beihang University, Beijing; the University of Texas, San Antonio; Arizona State University, Tempe, University of Indianapolis; Tudor Hall, UK, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts; and other universities, schools and museums. She has also attended residencies in the US, China and the UK. Her works have been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Europe and China. She is represented in permanent collections at the Joslyn Museum, Omaha, NE; Sheldon Memorial Gallery, Lincoln, NE; Institute for Great Plains Studies, Lincoln, NE; Knoxville Museum of Art, Sioux City Art Center, Arkansas Art Center, Hallmark, Kansas City, TVA; Tennessee State Museum, Nashville, TN and many other museum, corporate and private collections. As a faculty member of the University of Tennessee she was awarded the Ellen McClung Berry Professorship, the Lorayne Lester College of Arts and Science Award and received Chancellor and College awards in advising and outreach. She was also a 2015 finalist for the YWCA Tribute for Women. In 2016, she was named Outstanding Alumna at the University of Nebraska Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts. She is currently Professor Emerita of Painting and Drawing at the University of Tennessee School of Art.

Thomas Riesing retired as Director of the School of Art at Ball State University on July 1, 2015. Previously, he was a Professor of Painting and Drawing at the University of Tennessee from 1973 to 2010. He was a Visiting Professor at the University of Texas in San Antonio in 1992; the National Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava, Slovakia in 1993; Beihang University in Beijing, China in 2009; and the National Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw, Poland in 2013, 2014, and 2017.  Since 1995, he has been a visiting artist/lecturer at eighteen different universities and academies in China including the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing, Sichuan University in Chengdu, Sichuan Institute of Fine Arts in Chongqing, Guangxi Normal University in Guilin, and Fujian Normal University in Fuzhou. He was awarded the position of Guest Professor 2000-05 at Sichuan University and was subsequently awarded a Permanent Guest Professorship in 2006. He has been the recipient of numerous Professional Development Awards and an NEH Endowment grant from the University of Tennessee to facilitate his work in China. He was also the recipient of the Ellen McClung Berry Professorship for Art at the University of Tennessee from 1999-02 and again in 2002-05. He received a Lily Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship in 1978. Riesing has exhibited his work extensively in the USA and abroad. He was one of three western artists invited to participate in the 1998 Asia-Pacific Contemporary Art Exhibition in Fuzhou, China. In February 2008, he had a two-person exhibition, Under the Peaceful Sky, at the Blue Dreamland Gallery in Chengdu, China, and in June 2009, he had a two-person exhibition, Shared Spaces, at the Beihang University Gallery in Beijing, China. He had a solo exhibition at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw, Poland in May 2014. His work is in many public, corporate, and private collections including Coca-Cola in Atlanta, GA; Tennessee Valley Authority in Knoxville and Chattanooga, TN; Opryland, Inc. in Nashville, TN; Northern Telecom Corp. in Nashville, TN; Zhongyin International Industrial Corp. in Fuzhou, China; Miami University and Miami Fine Arts Gallery in Oxford, OH; Davidson College Art Gallery in Davidson, NC; Sichuan University in Chengdu, China; and the Knoxville Museum of Art in Knoxville, TN. His curatorial work includes eight exhibitions featuring Chinese artists. Two of which are Writing the Real, 2006, an exhibition of drawings from the Central Academy of Fine Art; and Tradition and Transnationalism: Three Chinese Artists, He Gong, Gu Wenda, and Chen Danqing, 2001. He attended the University of Nebraska from 1966-73 where he received his BFA and MFA degrees. He was the recipient of the 2009 Outstanding Alumnus Achievement Award from the Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts at the University of Nebraska.