Exhibitions
OUTTA TIME
June 7 - August 28th
Joshua Bienko, Lester Merriweather
Tri-Star Arts is pleased to present the next exhibition in their Main Gallery at the historic Candoro Marble Building. A two-person show, Outta Time, featuring recent works by artists Joshua Bienko (Knoxville, TN) and Lester Merriweather (Memphis, TN) opens Friday, June 7 and will run through Saturday, August 28, 2024. Curator: Brian R. Jobe.
A preview reception will be held on Friday, June 7, 2024 from 5:00—8:00 pm. Additionally, there will be an artists’ reception on Friday, July 19, 2024 from 5:00—8:00 pm (artists in attendance). There will be an artist talk by Bienko and Merriweather beforehand on July 19 at 3:30pm. The address is 4450 Candora Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37920 and admission is always free of charge.
Joshua Bienko (b. 1978, NY) received his MFA from the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia in 2008, and his BFA from the University of Buffalo in 2000. He has exhibited at NADA (NY), Dallas Contemporary (TX), Artpace (TX), Labor Ebertplatz (Köln), Vox Populi (PA), Big Medium (TX), OUTERSPACE (Facebook) and the Guggenheim Museum (in collaboration with YouTube Play Biennial). Most recently he has shown in New York, Portland, Baltimore, Brooklyn and Pittsburgh. He has also curated shows in Brooklyn, Queens, Seattle, and Gainesville and is one of the founding members of the artist-run space Ortega y Gasset Projects in Gowanus, and C for Courtside in Knoxville. He is a 2009 Tanne Foundation recipient, and a Hambidge Residency and V.C.C.A Fellow. Bienko is an Associate Professor in the School of Art at the University of Tennessee, where he teaches Drawing and Painting. “Who’s the G.O.A.T.? Jordan! Or maybe J.M.W. Turner. Yeah, Either Jordan or Turner.”
Lester Julian Merriweather (b. 1978) is a Memphis-based visual artist. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture. He holds an MFA from Memphis College of Art and a BA from Jackson State University. Merriweather has exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. at various venues such as the Studio Museum (New York, NY), CAM (St. Louis, MO), TOPS Gallery, Crosstown Arts, and Powerhouse (Memphis, TN), Diverseworks (Houston, TX), Stella Jones Gallery (New Orleans, LA), and Atlanta Contemporary (Atlanta, GA). He has also exhibited internationally at the Zacheta National Gallery (Warsaw, Poland). Merriweather served as the first Curatorial Director of the Jones Gallery & the Martha & Robert Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art at the University of Memphis from 2010-2016. He worked on the Board of Directors for Number, Inc. independent journal where he created the Art of the South exhibition series. He is a founding member of the ArtsMemphis Artist Advisory Council and the artsAccelerator Grant Panel. He served as the Curatorial Consultant for the PPF Contemporary Art Collection (Memphis, TN). He is Emeritus for the Advisory Panel of TONE Memphis. Merriweather is participating in Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage. Originating at The Frist Art Museum (Nashville, TN), the exhibition travels to The Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, TX) and The Phillips Collection (Washington, D.C.).
image: Lester Merriweather, Untitled (from the #Better Gardens and Jungles Series), 2023, cut paper collage on canvas, 12" x 16"
