Exhibit of the Work of Jason Brown: Walters State Community College
Jason Brown, associate professor of Art at the UT School of Art has a solo exhibition of his sculpture at the Catron Gallery, R. Jack Fishman Library, at Walters State Community College, 500 S. Davy Crockett, Morristown. beginning January 18, 2023 through March 30. Brown’s work and exhibit, titled “Foothills,” explores the impact that extractive industries such as mining, oil and gas have on the ecosystems and watersheds of Appalachian landscapes. Coal mining and mountaintop removal are especially compelling subjects for his sculptures and installations, which challenge viewers to engage in a civic dialogue about individuality, community, and place.
Jason Brown stated, “I’m grateful to Professors Jessie VanderLaan Delaney and Amy Evans and the staff of Walters State Community College in Morristown, Tennessee for inviting me to share my sculpture with students and the campus community this spring semester. The opportunity to install ten years of artwork in one space is a gift and provides a moment for reflection to see new connections between objects and ideas. It is also meaningful for me to be able to return to a campus where I installed a permanent public artwork nearly ten years ago.”
Jason Sheridan Brown received his M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1999, and has been teaching Sculpture at the University of Tennessee since 2001. Brown’s artwork has been exhibited nationally, including solo and group exhibitions in 22 states, and internationally in Canada and New Zealand.
In addition to teaching and making art, Brown is involved with a number of professional and community organizations. He has been the President of the Mid-South Sculpture Alliance board of directors since 2018. MSA seeks to advance the understanding that sculpture educates, affects social change, and engages artists, art professionals, and the community in dialogue. In addition to sponsoring exhibitions and conferences, MSA has established a thriving scholarship program for emerging artists.
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Jason Brown’s Artist’s Statement
My sculptures are situated in urban and rural landscapes in order to question human relationships with the natural world. I want my objects and projects to challenge users to engage in a civic dialogue about individual, community, and place. My recent work explores mountainous landscapes and rural cultures through a series of projects that question the controversial practice of mountaintop removal coal mining that is now prevalent throughout Southern Appalachia. This destructive mining practice has dramatically changed our regional landscapes throughout rural Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia, and Kentucky.
I am also creating projects that engage viewers in a conversation about the environmental cost of energy extraction from the earth as it relates to our human wants and needs in a consumer culture. This includes site-responsive projects in landscapes affected and altered by mining, fracking and oil & gas exploration. Exploring mountainous landscapes through my artwork has revealed new formal geometric elements in my sculptures, especially triangular shapes and tetrahedron structures. These “manufactured” landscapes combine industrial and artificial materials with raw materials such as coal and stone in constructive hybrid terrains.