Jered Sprecher Visits Academy of Rome
Jered Sprecher, professor in the UT Knoxville School of Art, spent June and July 2023 in Italy, as a UT Affiliated Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. While at the academy, Sprecher spent time visiting historical examples of Roman painting and sculpture that featured decorative motifs drawn from nature. The Ad Gallinas Albas Garden Frescoes and the carvings on the Ara Pacis were a few highlights from his time in Rome. During his fellowship, Sprecher began work on a new series of paintings fusing decorative images of flowers that are infused with the look and feel of digital technology.
The American Academy in Rome hosts recipients of affiliated fellowships awarded by educational and cultural organizations around the world. Affiliated fellows add to the diversity of the academy’s artistic and scholarly community, and these fellowships are coordinated by the organizations for which they are named.
This prestigious academy supports innovative artists, writers, and scholars living and working together in a dynamic international community. There, artists from many disciplines are given time to pursue their work in an atmosphere conducive to intellectual and artistic freedom and interdisciplinary exchange. Since 1894, the academy has provided something unique: a chance for artists and scholars to spend significant time working in one of the oldest, most cosmopolitan cities in the world. The richness of Rome’s artistic and cultural legacy and its power to stimulate creative thinking served as the initial impetus for the academy’s founding. Today, this tradition lives on, transformed by the dynamism of the academy’s constantly evolving community.
Sprecher is a nationally and internationally exhibiting artist. He has been faculty in the UT School of Art since 2005, teaching undergraduate and graduate painting and drawing.
Instagram: @jeredsprecher