"Tiny Deaths" by Mario Gallardo Opens Thursday, September 4 at Hammond Hall
09/02/2014
The Hammond Hall Gallery at Jacksonville State announces a new exhibition by JSU alumnus Mario Gallardo. The exhibition, Tiny Deaths, opens with a reception on September 4 from 5-7 p.m. Works on display include a series of photograms made from human ashes, found art sculptures, ceramic installations and more. The reception is free and open to the public.Gallardo creates works that are primarily based on personal “peak experiences” as a sort of self-evolving narrative of transformation. “I am very interested in objects that are transformed from one state to another in a very literal sense, but also metaphorically how we assign new meaning to objects based upon where they are contemplated.” For Gallardo creating art involves some outside the studio activities including sliding down hills, excavating ancient stones, collecting seeds, and sprinkling human ashes. It also includes more traditional approaches like drawing, video art, ceramics and painting.
Although he is a practicing studio artist, Gallardo has focused most of his creative energy for the past seven years on promoting other artists and developing art venues and programing in Northeast Alabama. He is the Division Chair of Fine Arts and Director of the Meadows and Mezzanine Galleries at Gadsden State where he has taught for the past eleven years.
In 2008, Gallardo founded the Walnut Gallery, a contemporary non-profit gallery that showcases regional, national and international artists. The gallery offers a variety of programing including the Walnut Poetry Series, independent film screenings, artwalks, workshops, lectures, and public art.
Gallardo has received numerous awards and fellowships including the National Alumni Fellowship from the University of Alabama, an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Alabama State Council on the Arts, and the Alabama Community College Chancellor’s Art Award. Over the past six years Mr. Gallardo has curated over one hundred exhibitions with an emphasis on contemporary art in the Southeast including public sculptures that are installed Gadsden, AL. He received his BFA from Jacksonville State in 1999 and a MFA in Sculpture from the University of Alabama in 2002.
For more information about the exhibition or to schedule an interview with the artist contact Mario Gallardo at mario@walnutgallery.org.