STUDIO VISIT: GREG POND
JUN. 28, 2018
STUDIO VISIT: GREG POND
JUN. 28, 2018
I am interested in cultural attitudes towards landscape and the pursuit of utopia (no place). It is the landscape that largely influences our collective mythology and cultures. I compress histories and cultures, alter the pace of time, and distort physical scale to portray a psychological rather than a social or material realism.
To be able to see beyond predetermined standards to reach conclusions drawn from the diversity of experience is the gift of creative thought. I convey my ideas through unexpected combinations of images and media and seek to engage the viewer in ways that are physical and phenomenological. I impose specific formal and/or temporal compositions that are intended to offset usual associations with the subject matter.
My art practice involves sculpture, sound installation and performance, video, documentary, electronics, and programming. I am Professor of Art at the University of the South and a founding member of the independent arts organization Fugitive Projects. I have served as a board member of the Mid-South Sculpture Alliance and on the board of Number Inc., a non-profit arts magazine headquartered in Memphis.
In 2012, I completed a feature-length documentary about the architectural and political history of Trench Town in Kingston Jamaica that I produced and directed. In 2011, 2012, and 2013 I received arts project grants from MakeWork Foundation in Chattanooga. I was a recipient of the Tennessee State Individual Artist grant, a recent Kennedy Fellow at the University of the South, and have been an artist in residence at the F+F School of Art in Zurich and the Burren College of Art in Ireland.
I also work as an independent writer, curator, and lecturer with projects and events hosted by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, Fivemyles Gallery in Brooklyn, Delta Axis in Memphis, the Frist and Cheekwood Museums of Art in Nashville. My work has been exhibited across the US and internationally in places such as Galway and Dublin, Ireland; Basel, Switzerland; Cairo, Egypt; Kingston, Jamaica; Charlestown, St. Kitts and Nevis; Portland, Oregon; Austin, Texas; Chicago, New York, New Orleans, Memphis, and Nashville. My work will be featured in upcoming exhibitions and screenings with the German Jamaican Society in Frankfurt, Seed Space in Nashville, and the Hunter Museum of Art in Chattanooga.
- Greg Pond, June 2018
* select images courtesy of the artist
Greg's upcoming exhibition, guncotton, will open at Zeitgeist Gallery in Nashville on Saturday, July 7 (reception time - 6:00-8:00pm) and will remain on view through Saturday, August 25: https://locatearts.org/exhibitions/nashville/guncotton
Check out more of his recent work: