Winner of the 2007 Individual Artist Fellowship in Visual Art-Sculpture
from the Tennessee Arts Commission
Jeff Hand's recent work fuses felt, fur, and funk into a wry post-Pop commentary on art history and current culture. Hand poses questions regarding the division of high and low art, the ownership of images, and what makes someone an artist.
Tactile materials welcome participation and provide a level of safety; image choices are deliberately familiar. Once engaged, however, the atmosphere of ease dissipates. Divergent elements of humor, irony, innocence, and cynicism disorient the viewer, and require navigation of beliefs about the nature of art as a means of egress from the work.
