Niles Wallace: A Retrospective

August 31 – September 28, 2018

Opening Reception: Friday, August 31, 5-7 PM

The Martha and Robert Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art presents a retrospective exhibition featuring the work of Niles Wallace. The exhibition celebrates the artist's 41-year career as a professor at the University of Memphis and includes a variety of three-dimensional works, ranging from ceramics to large-scale sculpture and installation.

Much of Wallace's work is imbued with a sense of nostalgia, domesticity, and often, the artist's wry sense of humor. With his parents divorcing when he was young, Wallace lived with his mother and grandparents. His grandfather, a barber, and his grandmother a seamstress, taught him what it meant to work and create with his hands. He was exposed to the realities of the working class—the frustrations and fruits of labor. Strong women, the motivation of faith, and the ability to work with what was available and waste nothing have been recurring influences in the artist's work.

Occupying both gallery spaces, the exhibition spans much of Wallace's five decades making art in a variety of mediums. Several works exhibited before in Memphis and beyond have been reconfigured for the present installation, imparting a sense of newness to once familiar works. The tactility of his materials—whether clay, plastic, or carpet—and its response to touch are central to the artist's work and process.

Memphis-based artist, Niles Wallace, was born in Western Pennsylvania in 1948. He received a BA in Art Education from Edinboro State University in 1970 and an MFA in Ceramics from Alfred University in 1974. He taught briefly at The Philadelphia College of Art and at The State University of New York at Albany before beginning his tenure as ceramics professor at the University of Memphis in 1976, where he retired in the spring of 2018. His work has been exhibited on a national level and can be found in numerous private and corporate collections.

Image: Niles Wallace, Green Pool, 2018. Porcelain, 18 × 8 ½ × 6 in.