Group of emerging talents meditate, present take on Elvis

Photo by Mike Maple // Buy this photo

Kay Coop and other artists were allowed draw inspiration at Graceland ''and pay tribute to the hometown guy," said Kevin Kern of Elvis Presley Enterprises.

Perhaps no pop culture icon has resonated more within the art world than Elvis Presley. Lionized in works from provocateur Andy Warhol to self-taught painter Howard Finster, the kingly music icon has long captured the imagination of artists far and wide, surpassing even that of Marilyn Monroe, with whom he shared a mid-1990s touring exhibition, "Elvis + Marilyn: 2 x Immortal."

Photo by Mike Maple

Kay Coop and other artists were allowed draw inspiration at Graceland ''and pay tribute to the hometown guy," said Kevin Kern of Elvis Presley Enterprises.

Photo by Mike Maple

Art Wilson's ''51 Drive-In'' will join other works at Memphis Botanic Garden, just in time for Elvis Week.

Wrote Geri DePaoli and Wendy McDaris in that show's catalog: Elvis and Marilyn "have transcended the specific. ... The reality of their actual lives is less important than the way in which these figures are pictured ... their images carrying and mirroring the needs and projections of a culture in the midst of upheaval and value shifts."

River City Artists, a local collective of emerging talent under the direction of noted watercolorist Fred Rawlinson, understands that concept and has weighed in on the topic of Elvis art with "Our Town II: Eyes on Graceland," a group show at Memphis Botanic Garden in the Visitors Center Gallery. Running through Aug. 31, the exhibit consists of 70 works by 15 artists who were given rare access to the grounds of Graceland in arriving at their depictions.

"It was nice to have a group of Memphis artists interested in coming to Graceland ... and pay tribute to the hometown guy," says Kevin Kern, director of public relations for Elvis Presley Enterprises. River City Artists were allowed to tour Graceland twice to take pictures and gather ideas. Such access is given infrequently, said Kern, who added that some dozen pieces from the exhibit will hang at Graceland as part of the annual Elvis Week art contest/showcase. The exhibit will then travel to Jackson, Tenn., for a showing during November and December at the Ned R. McWherter West Tennessee Cultural Arts Center.

The featured artists of "Our Town II" are part of a group that attends a regular Wednesday seminar by Rawlinson at his Germantown gallery and studio. Last year, they put together the show, "Our Town," in which the city of Memphis was the backdrop.

Says Rawlinson, "People attracted to (my seminar) are looking for someone to push them much further. They've opted to introduce themselves into the marketplace, so I've planned shows like this to give them the experience it takes in order to be an exhibiting artist, not just a weekend painter."

The results of "Our Town II" are about as varied as Elvis' career. They include impressionist, abstract and decorative works, and a few made with a pop art nod to Warhol. Images run the gamut as well, from Presley's equestrian hat and boots to depictions of the car museum and wedding chapel to several of Graceland's wall, including one interactive piece by Steve Stone that invites Botanic Garden visitors to write their own graffiti-rendered thoughts.

Many are imbued with layers of Presley-specific meaning, as in "The Sentries," one of three contributions by Rawlinson, in which a winter-dusted Graceland sits distant, almost unattainable, a snow-globe of a mansion buffered by a foreground of barren trees. Notes the watercolor master, "It symbolizes the Memphis Mafia that surrounded the King wherever he was. You can't quite get to him."

Yet other paintings, such as Wanda Winsett's striking "Barns at Graceland," use the opportunity to explore form, line and color in a highly stylized fashion that is less about the singer and his home/museum than about Elvis as a conduit to broader creativity.

Fair game, says Rawlinson, who put only one restriction on his budding art professionals: no maudlin visual sentiment allowed, or in his words, no "Elvis trap."

"I said your next challenge is going to be Graceland, and that's the only place you can draw your inspiration. And it's going to be your job to make it art. If you paint tourist artwork, I'm going to be on you like a toad frog on a June bug."

"Our Town II: Eyes on Graceland"

On display through Aug. 31 at Memphis Botanic Garden, 750 Cherry, at the Visitors Center Gallery (free to the public). Hours are Monday-Saturday 9 a.m.-6 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Call 576-4100 or go to memphisbotanicgarden.com.

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