TUSCUMBIA– The Tennessee Valley Museum of Art (TVMA) is hosting
two art exhibits this fall featuring sculptor Helene Fielder and painter Zack Underwood. These
shows will be on display October 1 through November 13, and the museum will also livestream gallery talks with both artists during the exhibitions.
Helene Fielder
Helene Fielder is a native of Rive de Geir, France. She has lived in various countries and
American states and now maintains a full-time studio in Mississippi. Fielder describes her organic clay sculptures as having “varied textures and colors” that “echo the forms and colors of the earth.”
Jonathan Cain, curator at TVMA, says that Fielder is “a well known ceramicist whose works have been exhibited across the southeast and beyond.” Cain says that her work “continues to elevate the ceramic form as sculpture,” and that her pottery pieces “often bridge the worlds of functional ware and sculptural form.”
Zack Underwood is a native of Florence who now lives in Decatur. A major theme of
Zack Underwood
many of his pieces is the uncertainty of modern masculinity and adulthood. He often creates cut-and-paste collages and then recreates them as large-scale oil paintings. Underwood has also branched out into hyper-realistic still lifes of everyday objects.
Cain praises Underwood as an “emerging artist whose paintings explore a sense of place and time using time-honored oil painting techniques to represent his subjects in a realistic if not trompe l’oeil (‘deceive the eye’) effect.”
Online exhibits from both artists will also be made available to view online at
www.tennesseevalleyarts.org, and information about the upcoming gallery talks will also be posted on the website and the museum’s social media.
The museum’s marketing director Jennifer Butler Keeton says that hosting these two exhibits together demonstrates a large part of TVMA’s mission. “We want to use our space to support and highlight our talented local artists, and also to bring in
work from regional artists for our community to enjoy right here in the Shoals,” said Keeton. “We’re excited that our visitors (both in-person and online) are going to get to experience such innovative, high-quality artwork.”
The Tennessee Valley Museum of Art is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Entry is $5 for adults, $3 for children, and free for members of the Tennessee Valley Art Association. Masks are required to enter the museum, and distancing is maintained.
For more information about these exhibits and other TVMA programs, call 256-383-0533.
Media Release/Jennifer Butler Keeton
Director of Public Affairs and Marketing
Tennessee Valley Art Association
