THE FOCUS

David Underwood is a Professor of Art and the Director of Exhibitions at Carson-Newman University, in Jefferson City, Tennessee, where he has been teaching since 1990. As a former Chairperson of the university’s Art Department, he led his academic department through two successful reaccreditations with the National Association of Schools of Art and Design. Underwood is pictured here (below) in one of the campus galleries that he manages, with his 2019 mixed-media piece, “Finding a New Honesty.” David Underwood, Virtual Studio Visit,...

"I’m interested in the apophenia one curates to make sense of the world around them. I tend to explore themes of safety, control and power and how these are implemented visually. I want the works made to perform a woven narration, constantly looping back informing and reimagining themselves to reference a larger, futile attempt at solving a mutating puzzle of our fictionalized ideal of America." Jesse Butcher, Virtual Studio Visit, June 2020 Jesse Butcher, Virtual Studio Visit, June 2020 Jesse Butcher, Vi...

Notes by Jana Harper on This Holding: Traces of Contact "I began working on This Holding several years ago with a simple question: 'What are the burdens we carry? And what might they look like?' In the process of researching, I talked to hundreds of people in dozens of community workshops: doctors, dancers, middle-school kids, college students, retirees, folks from many different countries, and from all walks of life. I always start by asking them to name the burdens...