Exhibitions
WAYNE WHITE: REVENGE OF THE KNOXVILLE GIRL
Knoxville Museum of Art / 1050 World's Fair Park Dr. March 26 - July 12th
Wayne White
Wayne White is a multi-faceted artist, illustrator, and musician who has charted a kaleidoscopic path through multiple frontiers of art and culture. From early life in Chattanooga and Emmy award-winning work as Art Director for Pee Wee’s Playhouse, to orchestrating music videos for Peter Gabriel and The Smashing Pumpkins, White traverses the pop culture landscape. The Revenge of the Knoxville Girl is an eclectic survey show that convenes an array of White’s Word Paintings, sketchbooks, small sculpture, and papier-mâché heads. It will also feature a monumentally scaled pair of puppets that provide a stage for the beleaguered Knoxville Girl of murder ballad notoriety to return and stand triumphant.
This show is presented in collaboration with the Big Ears Festival and is part of the 2026 edition of the Tennessee Triennial.
Artist Bio:
Wayne White is an American artist, art director, illustrator, & puppeteer. Born and raised in Chattanooga, Wayne has used his memories of the South to create inspired works for film, television, and the fine art world. After graduating from Middle Tennessee State University, Wayne traveled to New York City where he worked as an illustrator for the East Village Eye, New York Times, Raw Magazine, and the Village Voice. In 1986, Wayne became a designer for the hit television show Pee-wee’s Playhouse, and his work was awarded with three Emmys. After traveling to Los Angeles with his wife, Mimi Pond, Wayne continued to work in television and designed sets and characters for shows such as Shining Time Station, Beakman’s World, Riders In The Sky, and Bill & Willis. He also worked in the music video industry, winning Billboard and MTV Music Video Awards as an art director for seminal music videos including The Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘Tonight, Tonight’ and Peter Gabriel’s ‘Big Time.’
Since 2000, Wayne has shown his paintings, sculptures and installations in over 40 exhibitions worldwide. His work was chronicled in the Todd Oldham designed 2009 monograph, “Maybe Now I’ll Get The Respect I So Rightfully Deserve”. In 2012, he was the subject of the documentary “Beauty is Embarrassing” His children, Woodrow and Lulu, are both working artists.
Mimi and Wayne live in LA and make art every day.
* LEAD VENUE / FEATURE EXHIBITION: 2026 Tennessee Triennial for Contemporary Art *
Tennessee Triennial for Contemporary Art enters its next chapter under the leadership of a statewide consortium of art museums representing the state’s major metropolitan areas, including the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, the Knoxville Museum of Art, and the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga.
About Knoxville Museum of Art:
The Knoxville Museum of Art began its institutional life in 1961, establishing core values as a community-rooted organization that mined what art and culture could mean in East Tennessee. In the late 1980s, operations moved to a downtown location to serve a growing community. The modern-day KMA opened in 1990 in a 53,200 square-foot facility designed by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes. By the new millennium, the Museum’s collecting and programming mandate also advanced from an array of traveling blockbusters and local craft to focus on an archaeology of the fertile history of Appalachia and its evolving present. Our core exhibition project, Higher Ground: A Century of the Visual Arts in East Tennessee, was decades in the making, proposing a more inclusive historical narrative that entrenches the importance of stalwarts such as Lloyd Branson, Catherine Wiley, and the Knoxville Seven, while also recognizing the contributions of previously marginalized artists, most notably brothers Beauford and Joseph Delaney, as well as the self-taught Bessie Harvey. The KMA enters its next organizational chapter by way of a programmatic vision that pushes our purview into a more expansive geography. Under the banner of Appalachian Imaginary, the Museum presents a dynamic series of exhibitions that embrace a wider lens with which to see our site, and ourselves. Located at 1050 World’s Fair Park Drive in downtown Knoxville, the museum is open Tuesday through Saturday (10:00 AM–5:00 PM) and Sunday (1:00–5:00 PM). Admission and parking are free. Learn more at knoxart.org.
Press Contact: Sarah Kaplan, skaplan@knoxart.org, 865-934-2034
