Bill Ellis

"Memphis" and "anime" might seem like an odd fit, but one group doesn't think so. Anime Blues Con will take place from noon Friday until 5 p.m. Sunday at the Hilton Memphis in what organizers are billing as the first ...

In a climate of orchestral downsizing, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra is doing something remarkable: filling seats. Defying the trend many American orchestras face, the MSO in its 2010-11 season has shown dramatic increases in attendance, sponsorships and donations. Single concert ...

An HIV/AIDS-themed exhibit on display through the Church Health Center is more than a document of a disease. It is a reminder of the human struggle at the core of the pandemic: a South African boy uncertain he would see ...

Fireworks and free beer are part of the excitement at Friday night's Broad Avenue Spring Art Walk. Make that exhibits called "Fireworks" and "Free Beer." The art walk, which takes place from 5 to 10 p.m. at businesses along Broad ...

By staging the first museum exhibition on African-American architect Paul R. Williams, the Art Museum of the University of Memphis is breaking ground of its own. Called "Paul Revere Williams: American Architect," the 200-plus-image show, which runs through Jan. 8, ...

Last year, the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art offered a stellar show from a Harlem Renaissance master, Jacob Lawrence. This year it’s the Dixon’s turn with “Richmond Barthé: Harlem Renaissance Sculptor.” Memphians can take in the work of this equally ...

With current exhibit "In the Blood," Dixon Gallery and Gardens continues its commitment to both local artists and to intriguing adjunct shows.

For centuries, the Western art tradition was largely a religious one. A new exhibit, "Sitting Up with the Dead," reinvests contemporary art with such contemplation.

Mardi Gras in New Orleans is but one expression of carnival the world over. Another is a tradition developed in Trinidad that has since become part of London's festive landscape, the equally vibrant Notting Hill Carnival.

When the local art community lost longtime gallery Perry Nicole Fine Art in March, co-owner David Perry Smith thought he would get out of the art business and finally use that finance degree of his. Instead, he opened David Perry ...

When a Juneteenth Freedom and Heritage Festival began 17 years ago in Memphis, people did not know what it was. “I used to have to spell it — they did not have a clue,” says Glynn Johns Reed, executive director ...

The big bold colors that pop from the storefront's windows make the pitch: Memphis has a new art gallery. Harrington Brown Gallery opened in February at 5179 Wheelis, tucked off of White Station between Poplar and Walnut Grove, joining a ...

A new permanent installation, "Africa: Visual Arts of a Continent," gives locals another reason to enjoy the Art Museum of the University of Memphis. Coordinated with an academic program to debut this fall, the gallery space will stage annual exhibits ...

So awash in color are the canvases of Allison Weld, you want to dive right in. Take the art-versus-artifice work "Tiepolo's Dream," where an abstract painting bursting with hue feels more organic and "natural" than the panels of flower-motif fabric ...

Combine a good cause with good art and what do you get? The Works of Heart Valentine Auction, a benefit for the Memphis Child Advocacy Center that has become a tradition fast approaching two decades on the local arts scene. ...

Something exciting is happening at Joysmith Gallery. Through the end of this month, Memphians can get a look at the visceral, energized work of Angelbert Metoyer, and if he isn't a household name yet, just wait. The New Orleans-born, Houston-reared ...

You don't have to know that local artist Christina Katrakis survived the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster to appreciate her work. Or that she had relatives who died in the aftermath. Or that she lost a newborn child due to the ...

The Dixon is having the year's first heavy metal show. "Metal in Memphis," which runs Jan. 22-March 18 in the Mallory and Wurtzburger galleries, spotlights talent at another local institution, the National Ornamental Metal Museum. Specifically, some 20 to 25 ...

Elvis wasn't everywhere this year. In Memphis, that distinction belonged to University of Memphis art professor and sculptor/master of the assemblage, Greely Myatt, whose career was touted across town in the multi-venue retrospective "and exactly Twenty Years." Beyond his deserved ...

How does a Memphis artist get from Otherlands Coffee Bar to the Whitney? In three easy steps, if you ask Tam Tran.

In its first high-profile exhibit, Lifelink Memphis' upstart art space, Gallery 210, has secured a profoundly moving show of Biblical work by two 20th century Jewish masters. Titled "Talmud: The Art of Ben-Zion and Marc Chagall," the collection of 42 ...

Memphians may not have a good old-fashioned Weihnachtsmarkt, or Christmas market, to attend, but plenty of holiday art markets and shows that begin this weekend help spark the festive feeling locally. The offerings are diverse -- from fine art to ...

The fruits of Dany Beylerian’s passion for collecting exotic textiles can be seen in “Tapestries of the Silk Road: A Selection from the Beylerian Collection,” an exhibit of some 40 pieces at the Memphis Jewish Community Center that opens Dec. ...

"I love the hunt," Memphis artist Jeri Ledbetter says about the thought process that goes into her boldly abstract canvases. "When I go anywhere, I look for the interesting part of where I am," she says. "And it's never the ...

If the tantalizing images in Leslie Hewitt's photography-based work have specific back stories, she's not telling. The juxtaposition of an African-American man posing in a park against Walter Cronkite broadcasting the news, for example, could be read in any number ...

Regional artists flaunt their colorful wares in a big way on Thursday. A reception from 6 to 8 p.m. for an Artists Group show at Memphis Botanic Garden, 750 Cherry, will feature professional and student dancers in excerpts from the ...

Art is the perfect fit for coffee and conversation at two Midtown establishments. At the P& H Café, 1532 Madison, "Automatic Detour" features automatic drawings made by University of Memphis art graduate student Sarah Boyce, while at Otherlands, 614 S. ...

If you thought you knew Roy Lichtenstein, think again. The pop art icon gets a needed reappraisal in the exhibit, "Lichtenstein in Process," which opens Sunday at The Dixon Gallery and Gardens, 4339 Park. Nearly 70 works from the 1970s-1990s, ...

Don't overlook the side exhibit at the Dixon. Titled "Voices of a New South," the collection of two dozen pieces by four contemporary African-American artists from Memphis is as eye-popping in its own way as the main event.

As the title, “Everything but Cats, Cars, and Broken Hearts,” indicates, "Repair Days" at the National Ornamental Metal Museum is prepared to fix just about anything you care to bring in, from weeping chalices to weather vanes to motorcycles. Celebrating ...

Five art-related businesses took part in the first Broad Avenue Art Walk, a number that has more than doubled in what is now an annual celebration of the burgeoning arts district. At tonight's 4th annual Broad Avenue Art Walk, 12 ...

Yan Karpovich always knew he would be an artist. As he explains in his uniquely Russian way: "As a child, I was forced to draw!" The results of this discipline can be seen in his first American solo exhibit, "Dark ...

Most people aren't flattered being equated with junk. Not so for Donna Blackard, the local artist who makes assemblage pieces from what others discard. "I find the oddest of things that turn into a new way of looking at them," ...

As if the hint of fall in Memphis weren’t reason enough to step outdoors, a new festival in Overton Park should offer even more incentive. Still not convinced? Try “free.” “Nuts! Over Art” promises a full day of art, music ...

More than 45 years after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his epochal "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington, his words continue to resonate, inform and inspire. They can also be appreciated anew in an art ...

Local art lovers have a passport waiting to be stamped at Joysmith Gallery, which has quietly made a name for itself as a Memphis art space with true global reach. The title of this month’s show, “Cultural Affirmations,” could in ...

A quarter century after the first few from the Memphis College of Art descended on undeveloped Horn Island, they keep coming back, enduring unforgiving heat, insects, no running water and -- especially harsh for today's art students -- no cell ...

In the midst of the burgeoning Broad Avenue arts district, a space dubbed Odessa has emerged an oasis of exciting, independent expression. On any given month, the gallery offers a mix of music, film and art that is at once ...

If you haven't caught the stellar Jacob Lawrence exhibit at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, which ends Sept. 6, there's now more reason. Simply drive across town after taking in the Brooks show and you can see Lawrence's influence ...

River City Artists, a local collective of emerging talent under the direction of noted watercolorist Fred Rawlinson, has weighed in on the topic of Elvis art with "Our Town II: Eyes on Graceland," a group show at Memphis Botanic Garden ...

When it comes to his colorful, oversized canvases, renowned Memphis artist George Hunt likes a frame to match, which can present its own challenges. "A man came from East Tennessee," recalls Hunt. "And he couldn't get the frame in the ...

The American psyche is, among many things, a composite portrait of people on the move, something Southaven's M. R. Davis Public Library highlights in a new educational exhibit called "Journey Stories." Created by the Smithsonian Institution with grant support through ...

Memphis gets its own Park Güell next week with the installation of a whimsical sculptural series in Southwest Memphis’ Dalstrom Park. The seven-piece creation by artist Suzy Hendrix, titled “Rock City,” references the rural/urban dichotomy of a city park with ...

If there is a cutting edge to the local art scene, it resides -- this month, at least -- inside Power House Memphis, where two concurrent exhibits echo with big ideas and an even bigger visual punch. The main show, ...

As powerful narrative, the work of Harlem Renaissance artist Jacob Lawrence speaks directly to the African-American experience. As powerful art, it speaks in equally direct tones to the human experience. In one of the most visually exhilarating exhibits to arrive ...

One artist paints the world around her, capturing the wonders and beauty of nature through her brushstrokes. The other artist documents the world within, clicking away at the struggles and forces that press against the human experience. Both are cancer ...

African-American cultural exhibit "Soulful Journey," produced by Las Vegas-based Beaty Four Entertainment, opened today at the National Civil Rights Museum and runs through July 22. It addresses not only the historical struggles of black Americans but the creative wellsprings of ...

You know you've wandered into a peculiar kind of exhibit when an object's materials are listed as silver and itching powder. Oh, and the title is "S.C.R.A.T.C.H." The show in question -- "Tributaries: Nathan Dube" -- is the latest in ...

There are times in Ali Cavanaugh's poignant exhibit at L Ross Gallery that you almost feel like a voyeur eavesdropping on someone's private, transformative moments. The artist is fine with that. After all, her intent is to capture what can't ...

Fans of the Gee's Bend quilting phenomenon are among those who will enjoy making connections between the African-American experience and the West African fabrics on display at the Pink Palace Museum. Long the garment of leaders and kings, kente is ...