"Alabama Reckoner" by Doug Baulos on exhibition at Dothan's Wiregrass Museum of Art.Dothan’s Wiregrass Museum of Art will present “Alabama Reckoner,” an exploration of the process-driven work of Alabama artist and University of Alabama at Birmingham assistant professor Douglas Pierre Baulos.
Baulos teaches drawing and bookmaking in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Art and Art History.
“Alabama Reckoner” is set to open April 20 and will run through June 30. In the exhibition, Baulos will present portraits of artists who inspire him, many of whom are also from Alabama. The portraits consist of three-dimensional found objects, handmade paper and meticulous details that give clues to each of the artists’ personalities. Baulos says these portrait installations reflect a multitude of interests, including grief and mortality, nesting and mending, memory, and the physical body and spirituality. Also featured in the exhibition are UAB Department of Art and Art History alumni Merrilee Challiss and Jon Wooley. Associate Professor Kerry Madden, MFA, from the UAB Department of English wrote the essay for the exhibition catalog.
At 6 p.m. Thursday, June 7, the Wiregrass Museum of Art will present an artist talk with Baulos, “Mending, Memory and Placemaking.” From 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, June 9, the museum will present a visiting artist workshop on visual ecology with Baulos and Pinky Bass. Register for the workshop online. Participants will experiment with drawing, folding and sashiko sewing to create a re-imagined sculptural object out of paper using moths as a theme. Kirigami, from the Japanese “kiru,” which means “to cut,” and “kami,” which means paper, is a variation of origami that includes cutting paper rather than solely folding the paper as in origami. Both events are free and open to the public.
Of his work, Baulos said, “Although I work with emotionally heavy, conceptual themes like loss, mortality, and the power and delicate nature of memory, my work is a reflection of my attempt to live my life in fragile exultation.
“In the portraits, I’m pinpointing intangible experiences and feelings and creating diorama maps where the sentient, intimate and vestigial are articulated, placing the viewer in their midst. The figurative/vestigial re-telling nature of some of my work stresses the idea of transformation and recovery over victimization. There is an intimacy with the subject becoming object, with the reverence for the past life and the confrontation of the doggedly present body. I’m interested in forms and images that accompany the body and in the traces the body leaves: a bed, a nest, a web, decay and shadows. My work is about exploring where these spaces are suspended for observation and meet at a crossroads between the temporal (fleeting) and concrete (lasting).”
This is the second exhibition in a three-part series recognizing Alabama’s Bicentennial and highlights the 2018 bicentennial theme “Honoring our People.”