Contact: Melissa Reifert
November 9, 2007

Greene County Artist Showcases Work at MECC’s Slemp Gallery

The Slemp Gallery on the campus of Mountain Empire Community College is currently hosting an exhibit of recent work by artist Garry D. Renfro. The exhibition, entitled “Emerging Thoughts,” consists of recent drawings, paintings, and assemblages, and represents a combination of several explorations conducted during Renfro’s Master of Fine Arts tenure at East Tennessee State University (ETSU.) The work will be on display at MECC until December 14.

According to Renfro, the common thread through the entirety of the production is an acknowledgement of the physicality of the art object, the psychological component of the landscape experience, and the memory of being a living part of a living environment. He uses the landscape of his home community in Greene County, and the experience of growing up in a family farming enterprise in rural East Tennessee during the 1950s and 1960s as a point of reference and departure for imagery. The genre of landscape is used to explore social, political and environmental concerns, as well as the autobiographical introspections.

“I attempt to be honest, realizing the emerging objects are subject to observations filtered through eyes guided by a mind informed by a disparate flux of influences, prejudices, misconceptions, and habits,” says Renfro through his artist statement. “The resulting work is selfish and fiercely autobiographical.”

Informing the work is the writing of T.S. Eliot and other modernist poets. Renfro attempts to infuse the pieces with a poetic atmosphere, saying, “My objective is to develop a surface and imagery suggesting that a transitory existence, a psychology, and an emotional context are pervasive in the landscape.”

Renfro received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from ETSU in 1973, and has worked in a number of areas of design as a business owner and for American Greetings Corporation. He has also been an active volunteer, providing design services for organizations such as Main Street Greeneville, the Greeneville Chamber of Commerce, Greeneville High School, the American Cancer Society, the Exchange Club, and Tusculum Arts Outreach. He is married to Kit Masters, and they have three children: Joshua, Jessie, and Marenah.

For more information about “Emerging Thoughts,” contact Alice Harrington, MECC Professor of Art, at (276) 523-2400, extension 247 or aharrington@me.vccs.edu. The Slemp Gallery is open from 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Friday, and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday. It is located in the Wampler Library of Robb Hall.

This piece, entitled “Questions for a Builder of Bridges,” is part of artist Garry D. Renfro’s exhibit, “Emerging Thoughts.” The Slemp Gallery on the campus of Mountain Empire Community College is hosting the exhibition until December 14.

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