image I A Map to Nowhere | Shabez Jamal, Courtesy of ALMA | LEWIS
MY MEMORY IS A MACHINE | NEW WORK BY AMBROSE RHAPSODY MURRAY
JANUARY 3 – FEBRUARY 22, 2025
My process is an exploration of our bodies as sites of historical memory and mystical/imaginative potential. The act of making through sewing, painting and assemblage are processes to imagine and visualize the complex layers and depth of story that live within our flesh and fibers. I aim to visualize the ephemerality and nuance of memory — to contend with the idea that our bodies, brains and sense of reality are “not containers for memory, but are memory themselves” (quoted from Alok Vaid-Menon). My practice becomes a place to contemplate and imagine the thin veil that exists between the spirit world and the physical world, and to make visible the slipperiness between memory/remembering, spirit, imagination and one’s sense of self.
FIRST FRIDAYS
JANUARY 3, 5-9PM
FEBRUARY 7, 5-9PM
First Friday events are free and open to the public. We hope you’ll be able to joins us for one or both of these evenings.
Murray will be at the gallery durning February’s First Friday.
image I The Sky Draws Near
AMBROSE RHAPSODY IN CONVERSATION WITH JOE TOLBERT
FEBRUARY 5, 5:30PM
McCarty Auditorium | A+A 109
Ambrose Rhapsody Murray (she/they) is a self-taught artist with roots in Florida and Asheville, NC. Through sewing, painting, material experimentation, film and collaborative projects, they create stories to investigate our relationships to the colonial undercurrents of our lives, the charged symbology of black feminine bodies, and the ephemeral and layered qualities of memory and remembering. Ambrose received their Bachelor’s from Yale University, and was recently selected as Forbes 30 under 30 in the 2024 Art section. Their work lives in the permanent collection of The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Montclair Art Museum, and has exhibited across the US and abroad.
Joe Tolbert Jr. is an LGBTQ+ advocate, Black cultural organizer, and Knoxville local who is Executive Director of the Waymakers Collective and founded Art at The Intersections. He is a scholar, writer, minister, and cultural organizer whose work is at the intersections of art, culture, spirituality and collective liberation.
image | Toni Esposito
BLACK CREATIVES MEETUP
FEBRUARY 4, 6-8PM
THE BOTTOM | 2340 E. Magnolia
Join The Bottom and Ambrose Rhapsody Murray for a natural dyeing fabric workshop.
RSVP here to attend. Limited space available.
image I Scraped me with your Kiss (detail) | courtesy of Abigail Ogilvy Gallery
This exhibition and programming is co-sponsored by UT’s Pride Center; the Office of Multicultural Student Life; Women, Gender, and Sexuality; the Department of Geography and Sustainability, the Council for Access and Engagement, and Africana Studies.