Triennial

A L A B A M A T R I E N N I A L // 2 0 2 2

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FOREWORD

AEIVA’s inagural Alabama Triennial features some of the best and brightest contemporary
Alabama artists working today. Through this recurring exhibition, which will occupy AEIVA’s
galleries every three years, we hope to provide opportunities for Alabama artists who are
already operating at a high level of sophistication. Artists presented here were encouraged
to take creative and conceptual risks with their works and we believe the results will
surprise, provoke, and challenge viewers.

This inaugural group of artists incorporates a variety of ages, cultures, interests, and artistic
mediums, each presenting a diverse range of ideas and viewpoints. The show includes
painting, photography, sculpture, textiles, neon, video, sound art, printmaking and more.
Thematic explorations include cultural identity, race, motherhood, memory, nature, folklore,
feminism, social equality, the human condition, ancestral histories, and much more.

Selected from a list of over 50 outstanding artists with ties to Alabama, this group
represents only a small fraction of the abundant breadth of creativity and artistic talent
Alabama has to offer. Future iterations of the Alabama Triennial will be curated by a rotating
selection of guest curators, scholars, and community members. We hope this exhibition
provides a platform for creative experimentation and community building for Alabama artists
and becomes a long-standing tradition of celebrating artists in our own back yard.

JOHN FIELDS
The Lydia Cheney and Jim Sokol
Endowed Director of AEIVA
TINA RUGGIERI
AEIVA Assistant Curator

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ERIN LEANN MITCHELL

What you don’t have in your head, you’ve got to have in your feet

JUN 10 -AUG 13, 2022

TRIENNIAL ARTISTS

TONY BINGHAM
JILLIAN MARIE BROWNING
ANNIE KAMMERER BUTRUS

TAMECA COLE
DEREK CRACCO
LAUREN FRANCES EVANS
STEVEN MARK FINLEY JR.
SYDNEY A. FOSTER
ROSCOE HALL
CHINTIA KIRANA
JONATHAN LANIER

JASPER LEE
LILY REEVES
MISSY ROLL
LILY AHREE SIEGEL

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ERIN LEANN MITCHELL

What you don’t have in your head, you’ve got to have in your feet

JUN 10 -AUG 13, 2022

Originally from Birmingham, AL, Erin Mitchell is a practicing artist and muralist whose work
has been featured in print and television and is in the collection of the Birmingham Museum
of Art. Mitchell moved to Chicago in 2007 to pursue her passion for art at The School of the
Art Institute of Chicago, where she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2011. Her interest in
teaching led Mitchell to Columbia College Chicago, where she graduated with her Master of
Arts in Art Education in 2016. Mitchell continues to expand her work, teaching and making
art depicting the black experience.

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What you don’t have in your head,
you’ve got to have in your feet
2021
Acrylic, spray paint, fabric appliqué spangle
Courtesy of the artist

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Window Seat
2021
Acrylic, spray paint, fabric appliqué

Courtesy of the artist

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The Magic Words
2021
Acrylic, spray paint, fabric appliqué
Courtesy of the artist

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Night Time is the Right Time
2021
Acrylic, spray paint, fabric appliqué

Courtesy of the artist

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Black, Black, Blue
Ashley M. Jones, Alabama Poet Laureate

for Erin Mitchell, June 2022,
The Alabama Triennial at AEIVA

–and this tale begins before the first ship
stole wind in its poisonous sails–
our hands, blue as ocean
and strong as it, too,
twisting our memories,
our history into braids–
our regal ancestry moisturizing
even our tightest curls–
the nobility of nappy,
the Blue Magic brilliance under our bonnets–
what a path even our hair can weave,
and no,
you can’t follow–

our feet hold a kind of knowledge
only God knows–
ten toes, each one
its own commandment–
our feet, how they carry us,
move us through all this world’s
sludge of blood and money
and fly us to our dreams–the wildest
the farthest,
the biggest,
the blackest,

and running, running, breathing in our glorious skin–

we are eternally
unkillably
phenomenally
alive.

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TONY BINGHAM

Multi-disciplinary artist Tony M. Bingham lives and works in Birmingham, AL. Bingham
received his BA in Communications from Antioch College, an MA in Film and Community
Media from Goddard College, and an MFA from Georgia State University. Bingham’s
research and resulting work explore communities and public space – sites of enslaved,
extractive, or industrialized labor – throughout Alabama including Fairfield, Helena, Panola,
Tannehill, and Titusville. Through his sculptures, large scale photography, and found audio
work, Bingham draws reference to unmarked burial sites and vernacular headstones, calling
into question where, how, and who we collectively remember. Bingham currently teaches
humanities and studio art at Miles College in Fairfield, AL. “I hope to be in conversation with
like-minded people who incorporate ancestral spirits in their thoughts and art making.”

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Ancestral Light Capture: Broken bottle
glass as lenses for Camera obscura #1
2020
Pinhole photo negative/ photomural
Courtesy of the artist

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Ancestral Light Capture: Broken bottle
glass as lenses for Camera obscura #2
2020
Pinhole photo negative/ photomural

Courtesy of the artist

Pages 26-27: Detail

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Wallace Plantation House 2
Descendant Peter Datcher
2021
Pinhole camera image on cotton
blend fabric
Courtesy of the artist

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Wallace Plantation House 1
2021
Pinhole camera image on cotton
blend fabric

Courtesy of the artist

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JILLIAN MARIE BROWNING

Jillian Marie Browning (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist pursuing themes of feminism,
identity, and the contemporary black experience. Born in Ocala, FL they received a BS degree
in Photography from the University of Central Florida in 2012 and an MFA degree in Studio
Art from Florida State University in 2015. They have had their work shown nationally and
is included in the permanent collection of the Center for Photography at Woodstock, The
Southeast Museum of Photography, and the University of Maryland’s David C. Driskell Center
For The Study of Visual Arts and Culture Of African Americans and the African Diaspora. They
enjoy puppies, comic books, the color pink, and radical feminism. Browning currently serves
as Assistant Professor of Photography at The University of Alabama at Birmingham.

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Thick Skin
2022
Cyanotype on cotton
Courtesy of the artist
Following Page: Detail

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Thin Patience
2022
Cyanotype on cotton

Courtesy of the artist

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ANNIE KAMMERER BUTRUS

Annie Kammerer Butrus is a painter based in Birmingham, AL. She received her BA in Art
from Wellesley College and completed her MFA at the University of Notre Dame. She has
taught at the University of Notre Dame, Space One Eleven, and the Birmingham Museum
of Art. Butrus’ paintings have been exhibited in museums and galleries across the United
States and are included in numerous important public and private collections including the
Children’s Hospital of Alabama, Southern Progress Corporation, and the Wellesley College
Rare Book Arts Collection. Her work has been reviewed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution,
Art Papers, and The Birmingham News. She has previously received an Alabama State
Arts Council Grant and was awarded the “Emerging Artist Award” by the Magic City Art
Connection in Birmingham. Annie Kammerer Butrus is represented by Thomas Deans
Gallery in Atlanta.

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Interim (How are you feeling today?)
2022
Acrylic on panel
Courtesy of the artist
Following Page: Detail

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TAMECA COLE

Tameca Cole is a visual artist and writer from Birmingham, AL. She also performs with Die
Jim Crow. Cole’s art has been featured in Art in America, Artforum, ArtNews, Momus, The
Nation, and The New York Times. Using any spare supplies available, Tameca creates
collages that are both political and personal. “My pain and struggles are just one of the
inspirations I draw upon to create. My goal is to express the human condition in a way that
enables the audience to see that we are all simply human.” Tameca Cole was featured in
the nationally acclaimed exhibition: Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration.

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Emmett Till
2021
Collage, charcoal on paper
Collection of Lydia Cheney and Jim Sokol

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Untitled
2022
Graphite and mixed media on paper

Courtesy of the artist

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DEREK CRACCO

Derek Cracco is Associate Professor of printmaking and computer graphics at the University
of Alabama at Birmingham. He received a BFA degree from Louisiana State University in
1996 and an MFA from Syracuse University in 1999. Cracco has participated in numerous
exhibitions nationally and internationally including Digital Printmaking Now at the Brooklyn
Museum of Art in NY; The Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts Juried Annual, in
Loveladies, New Jersey; Wrong Time, Wrong Place, at T.E.N.T. Center for Contemporary Art,
Rotterdam, Netherlands; and Risky Business at P.P.O.W. Gallery, New York, NY. Cracco has
been recognized for his innovative combination of traditional printmaking processes and
computer graphics. His work has been purchased by several museums and by many private
collections throughout the country and abroad.

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Do you Realize
2011
Collage, vinyl, and acrylic on panel
Courtesy of the artist

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From here to there
2022
Wallpaper
Courtesy of the artist

Following Page: Detail

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