Hi! Today I found myself wondering how many exhibitions Joan Miró had to promote in Paris before he was forced to leave in 1939. Like many artists he moved around quite a bit in those years, first living in Normandie, where he began the Constellations series, then, squeezed by fascists on two sides, to Mallorca and then home to Catalonia. I knew all of this but forgot it, I hadn’t really thought of Miro in a long time.

I’ve never heard anyone speak of the Constellations in these exact biographic terms before, but it feels to me like they might be “about” the separation and spread of his group of friends across the globe in 1939-40. ¹

On that note… Meet me in New York next week?

Group Chat Closing Party Jan 30 at Theodore!

I’d like to invite you to Theodore one last time on January 30 for a closing reception for this exhibition of ridiculous heads. On a related note, I just remembered this drawing I made a few years ago. Group Chat being an understated version of something I’ve had in mind for ages.

One, Two, Three More Newsworthy Items for February

1. The Avondale / Victory Heights Studio Crawl, a local art event I organized last year will head into it’s second year with an exhibition of work by all artists involved at Ology. The exhibition Eastside 11 will run February 14 through March 21 and includes my neighbors Tony Artemisia - Betsy Cain - Maxx Feist - Mary Hartman - Isaac McCaslin - Will Penny - Rick Petrea - Dana Richardson - Matt Toole & Eric Wooddell.

The Crawl itself will take place the following weekend, February 21 from 11am-5pm. Check the website and/or instagram / facebook for event updates as the day approaches.

2. Painting and Her Woman, a group exhibition on the theme of artist palettes, curated by Jodi Hays, will open February 3 at David Lusk Gallery, Nashville before traveling to Lusk’s Memphis gallery in March. I’ll be sure to share my contribution when the time is right.

3. And finally (for now) New South 7 will open at Kai Lin Gallery in Atlanta January 23 to March 13. I’ve got a new painting (pic below) in this exhibition whose theme is works of paper. From the PR: This year’s exhibition was juried by Beth Wilson, Fine Art Specialist for The Coca-Cola Company, whose selections highlight the breadth of conceptual, material, and formal approaches possible within the medium of paper.

It turns out building my own painting surfaces from cardboard and paper, as I began this past summer, technically categorizes the work in formerly off limits exhibition themes.

That’s it for now, though if this year is anything like last year I’ll be in touch again soon with more ways you can see my work out in the world. And if this year isn’t anything like last year, I guess you can expect to find whatever I’ve been working on at a gallery in New York sometime in 2030?

1  Art History, Fart History! Turns out the series wasn’t known or referred to as Constellations until the late 50s, making my grafted meaning almost as spurious as the name by which we know this body of work today.