Laura Elkins’ ‘America Selfie’ installation debuts Tuesday (Aug. 22) at the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College. Submitted photo
OXFORD, Miss. – The Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College will debut a site-specific exhibit by painter Laura Elkins this week in some of its renovated space that was dedicated last spring.
The installation, titled “America Selfie,” is a contemporary take on history painting and uses current events, American history, national symbols and both contemporary and art historical imagery to create a portrait of America.
The Honors College will host an opening reception for the exhibit from 3 to 4 p.m. Tuesday (Aug. 22). The installation also will be a location stop later that evening on the monthly Oxford Art Crawl, from 6 to 8 p.m. The installation, which also will be a stop on the Sept. 26 Art Crawl, runs through Sept. 29.
Debra Young, associate dean of the Honors College, had enjoyed Elkins’ monograph of paintings “Summer in the City,” which she said made her think through gender, power, history and friendship all at once.
This edginess of Elkins’ work matched up with Dean Douglass Sullivan-Gonzalez’s plan to use space in the new Honors College to provide a place for interaction and lively discussion. This exhibit demands both, Young said.
“The SMBHC concept of ‘citizen scholar’ has always accommodated the notion of ‘citizen artist’ as one of the manifestations of thoughtful, informed, courageous response and leadership,” Young said. “The artistic talent, linked to this urge to prod and probe – an introduction to Dean Sullivan-Gonzalez’s and his consequent invitation to do something for our new building – was a no-brainer.”
The artist’s monograph “Summer in the City” was published by Enlightening Press in 2015. Upshur Street Books in Washington, D.C. and Square Books in Oxford hosted signings and exhibitions in 2016.
Soon after the signing, Sullivan-Gonzalez invited Elkins to speak to Honors College students as part of a series titled “From the Edge of Inside,” inspired by an editorial in the New York Times by David Brooks. From there, the idea of creating an exhibit that reflects current and historic issues was born.
“These are things that have always been part of America, so I’m looking at the whole picture while using current and art historical imagery,” Elkins said. “I wanted to create a portrait of this bizarre place we live.”
Elkins, an Oxford native, began painting as a child while attending Saturday morning classes at the University Museum and the UM Department of Art. She returned to Oxford after earning a degree in architecture from the University of Virginia to paint full-time.
She was mentored by visionary painter and Mississippian Theora Hamblett and spent time in the acclaimed folk artist’s home and studio. Later, Elkins would share Hamblett’s earlier patronage with renowned art dealer Betty Parsons, who exhibited Elkins’s work in 1980.
Elkins’ recent exhibitions in New York include a 15-year retrospective of “The White House Collection” paintings, “First, She’s a Lady” at Tikhonova & Winter. Allen Frame, in the Creative Independent called it “one of the best shows of 2015.”
Other shows in New York include “Fabrications: Constructing Female Identity” at Dixon Place, and an exhibition and benefit auction for the Film-makers Coop at Next to Nothing Gallery that opens Thursday (Aug. 24).
Elkins lives in Washington, D.C., where 39th Street Gallery will exhibit “America Selfie” in January 2018. Her other exhibitions in the D.C. metropolitan area include “Portraits of US” at Montpelier Arts Center, “United in Passion and Pride” at 39th Street Gallery, “Portrait of Self as Other” at Studio Gallery and three solo shows at The Fridge.
For more information about Elkins, visit http://lauraelkinsartist.com/. Follow her on Instagram at @LauraElkins and on Facebook to see more of her work.