Tiger Strikes Asteroid Greenville (TSA GVL) is excited to announce that its next exhibition, Constellations, will be opening at Greenville Center for Creative Arts (GCCA) on Friday, October 2nd with an opening reception from 6 – 9 PM. The show was curated by TSA GVL Co-director Mark Brosseau and features work by Hamlett Dobbins, Lynne Marinelli Ghenov, Caroline Kent, Juan Logan, Alex Paik, and Esmé Thompson. Constellations runs until November 25th. This exhibition is generously sponsored by Pinnacle Financial Partners.

Constellations explores how six artists use abstraction as a navigational tool. The work in this show is developed as a way of feeling out relationships – mapping the artist’s sensory experience, cultural history, personal history, or understanding of life and the universe and their minor place in it. The ‘maps’ that are created by the artists are not meant to be a set of instructions to get to a specific destination. They are the evidence of an investigation: a charting of the unknown as opposed to documentation of the known.

Alex Paik and Esmé Thompson both create their pieces by combining smaller units together. Thompson’s installations are made up of painted pieces of aluminum that combine elements of visual language from various cultures that she has encountered on her extensive. The pieces are a map of her visual experience during her travels. Paik’s pieces are made up of simple geometric forms rendered in cut paper that are layered and extrapolated together in such a way that allows his pieces to show us how we experience visual phenomena. Juan Logan uses symbolic forms, patterns, and various materials to create paintings that excavate the African American experience. He charts connections from the situations of the past to the conditions of the present. Caroline Kent and Hamlett Dobbins use painting as a way of investigating alternative systems of logic and language. Dobbins captures something elemental about specific experiences with specific people in his paintings. Kent’s work is in constant translation; each painting is the next step in the evolution of language. The body of work maps out that progression. Lynne Marinelli Ghenov uses found paper, with its own history, as the basis for her work. Her drawings represent points of intersection between the history of the paper and her own personal history.

There will be an ARTalk panel discussion at GCCA on Tuesday, November 17th from 6 to 7 PM as part of the exhibition. Exhibition artists Juan Logan and Alex Paik will be joined by curator Jonell Logan and creative coach and poet Uchechi Kalu to discuss how art can be a tool for navigating community.

Hamlett Dobbins (Memphis, TN) is native of Tennessee and has spent most of his life in Memphis. He received his BFA from the University of Memphis and his MFA from the University of Iowa. Dobbins has taught at University of Mississippi, Memphis College of Art, University of Iowa, University of Memphis and at Rhodes College. He ran an alternative exhibition space called Material and worked as a curator at Delta Axis @ Marshall Arts as well as Clough-Hanson Gallery at Rhodes College. In 2000 he received a fellowships and residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art. He has received grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and ArtsMemphis. He has shown his work throughout the region and nationally. In 2013 he was awarded the Rome Prize and spent eleven months as a fellow at the American Academy in Rome.

Lynne Marinelli Ghenov (Knoxville, TN) is an artist primarily making drawings and works on paper. She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, spent most of her life residing on the east coast and currently lives and works in Knoxville, TN. She holds a BFA in Sculpture from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, PA (1998). Lynne has shown nationally in various group and solo shows, including University City Arts League and Artspace Liberti in Philadelphia (PA), Tiger Strikes Asteroid and Monte Vista Projects in Los Angeles (CA), Proto Gallery in Hoboken (NJ), and Crosstown Arts in Memphis (TN). Her recent shows include a two-person show, Collected Marks, at Carson-Newman University in Jefferson City (TN) and Knoxville Local, a group exhibition for Tri-Star Arts in Knoxville (TN). In 2017 Ghenov co-founded and co-directed the artist-run space C for Courtside in Knoxville. She is currently the associate at Loghaven Artist Residency in Knoxville (TN).

Caroline Kent (Chicago, IL) is a visual artist that explores the relationship between language, translation, and abstraction through an expanded painting practice. Kent labors to expand the discourse of abstraction to include alternative logics that move beyond surface and frame through each act of translation from one medium to the next. Kent received a B.A. at Illinois State University (1998) and received her M.F.A. from The University of Minnesota (2008).  Kent has exhibited nationally at The Flag Art Foundation (NY), The Walker Art Center (MN), The DePaul Art Museum (Chicago), The California African American Museum (LA), The Suburban (Chicago), and The Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago). Kent has received grants from The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, and The Jerome Foundation. Most recently she is a 2020 Artadia Foundation Chicago Awardee. Kent’s work is in the collections of the Walker Art Center, MN and The Art Institute of Chicago and is represented by Kohn Gallery based in Los Angeles. She currently has solo exhibition, Victoria/Veronica: the figment between us, on view at Tiger Strikes Asteroid Chicago.

Juan Logan (Belmont, NC) was born in Nashville, TN and received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Logan’s artworks address subjects relevant to the American experience. At once abstract and representational, his paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations, and videos address the interconnections of race, place, and power. They make visible how hierarchical relations and social stereotypes shape individuals, institutions, and the material and mental landscapes of contemporary life. Logan’s works can be found in private, corporate, and public collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Gibbes Museum of Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Memphis Brooks Museum, the Zimmerli Museum of Art, and the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. Most recently, his piece Some Clouds are Darker became part of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Alex Paik (Brooklyn, NY) is Founder and Director of Tiger Strikes Asteroid and Director at Trestle Gallery. His modular, paper-based wall installations explore perception, interdependence, and improvisation within structure while engaging with the complexities of social dynamics. He has exhibited in the U.S. and internationally, with notable solo projects at Praxis New York, Art on Paper 2016, and Gallery Joe. His work has also been featured in group exhibitions at BravinLee programs, Lesley Heller Workspace, and MONO Practice, among others. Paik He was also the curator of the Satellite Art Show in Miami from 2015 to 2018.

Esmé Thompson (Lebanon, NH) has been influenced by her extensive travels. These experiences have informed and enlivened her art.  She has been a resident of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy studying medieval painting and decorative arts.  She has travelled to Morocco to study ceramic and fiber art and to Ireland to study Celtic manuscripts and lacemaking.  Most recently her travels have taken her to Australia to explore   aboriginal art in Kakadu and Uluru.  Thompson is Professor of Studio Art at Dartmouth College.    

Mark Brosseau (Greer, SC) was born and raised in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. He received his BA from Dartmouth and his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 1998 and 2001, respectively. He then spent a year working in Iceland as a Fulbright Scholar. He has had fourteen solo exhibitions and been in numerous group exhibitions. His work has been featured in New American Paintings, and reviewed by ArtForum, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Two Coats of Paint, the Artblog, and others. He is a 2019 recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and is Co-director of Tiger Strikes Asteroid Greenville. Tiger Strikes Asteroid Greenville is the newest part of the Tiger Strikes Asteroid network of artist-run spaces and joins locations Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. They are a platform for artists that is curated and organized by a group of artist-volunteers. Their mission is to create the physical, mental, and emotional space for artists to show their work, meet, and exchange ideas on their own terms. TSA GVL focuses on connecting the art communities in Greenville and the greater Southeast to the global art world. TSA was founded in 2009 in Philadelphia and is a 501c3 non-profit organization.

Greenville Center for Creative Arts is open to visitors on Wednesday to Friday from 1 PM to 5 PM each day. Visitors are required to wear a mask while visiting the gallery and observe responsible social-distancing behavior. The opening reception will be a ticketed event and more information about scheduling a visit and ticket will be available at www.artcentergreenville.org in the coming weeks.  

For more information please contact TSA GVL at greenville@tigerstrikesasteroid.com and GCCA at exhibitions@artcentergreenville.org.