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KFAC and The Arts Company present ‘Contemporary Urban Folk Art From Kentucky’

Morehead State University

The Arts Company, 215 Fifth Avenue of the Arts, North, Nashville, in collaboration with Morehead State University’s Kentucky Folk Art Center will present “Contemporary Urban Folk Art from Kentucky: End of the Agrarian Tradition.”

The exhibition will showcase regional urban folk artists who are being accepted as contemporary American artists making art that matters in the modern world and feature a variety of art forms including sculpture, painting, collage, bas-relief, and assemblage — by four diverse Kentucky-based artists, including Tad DeSanto, Joshua Huettig, Robert Morgan, and Bruce New.

These artists use common materials to express cultural experiences from the viewpoints of their urban communities, in the tradition of artistic pioneers Thornton Dial, Howard Finster, Gee’s Bend Quilters.

The exhibit will open during First Saturday Art Crawl Downtown, Saturday, Feb. 6, from 6-9 p.m. and will continue through Feb. 24. Gallery regular hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. until 5 p.m.

A conversation Matt Collinsworth, Kentucky Folk Art Center director, and singer, songwriter, poet, and avid folk art collector Kevin Gordon, hosted by Nashville Arts Magazine, will preview the exhibition of original contemporary new work during Fresh Art Friday at The Arts Company on Feb. 5, at 5:30 p.m.

Admission is free, but RSVP is required. E-mail Art@TheArtsCompany.com to reserve space for the event.

“While these artists range in age from their thirties to their sixties, they are all of a generation of folk artists in Kentucky, who not only exist on the cutting edge, but define it actively through their work. “It is also important to note that none of these artists live in secluded, rural places. All four live in or very near the state’s urban centers of Lexington and Louisville,” said Collinsworth.

“In an age when the line between folk art and fine art is increasingly blurred, these four artists stand to ask if it should exist at all. Their work is all carefully conceived, fully intentional, and gloriously crafted — resulting in fine American contemporary art,” added Collinsworth.

“American folk art of the 20th Century has been understood to be folksy art of the people — “untrained, rural, loner artists” living mostly in the south, usually in poverty, and generally untrained and uneducated as artists,” remarked The Arts Company Owner Anne Brown.

“At the beginning of the 21st century, some of these artists are coming to be viewed as significant American artists whose contemporary artwork has helped shape our modern visual culture, artists who will have a lasting influence on other artists, collectors, and audiences for years to come,” added Brown.

For more information, call 606-783-2204.

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