First Friday at the Emporium | The Knoxville Focus

Stories in this Week's Focus

You are cordially invited to celebrate local artists
and enjoy NEW exhibitions, music by Ben McLaughlin, and artist demos
Friday, June 2, from 5:00 – 9:00 PM
At 100 S. Gay Street

Hosted by the Arts & Culture Alliance

Chaos & Void includes new paintings by Vincent Drake and new photography by Greg Schweiger. Read more

Vincent Drake was born in 1976 in Udon Thani, Thailand to a Thai mother and American father and spent his formative years in a working-class neighborhood in southeast Los Angeles. His art can be seen as an exploration of society’s struggle with the individual and our human nature. vincentdrake.com | Instagram: @artistvincentdrake

Greg Schweiger was raised the youngest of five siblings on a small farm in eastern Kansas. Photography has always been a natural pastime to capture his love of the outdoors. Recently he has expanded his photography and creativity in the direction of abstract expressionism. gschweigerphoto.art | Instagram: @gschweiger

Arboretum Obscura came about over the course of several years and miles of hikes throughout a variety of locations in the Appalachian Mountains. Trees that grew in seemingly impossible terrains, trees that had grown incredibly haphazardly, trees that seemed to overcome extreme disfiguration and mutation – they all intrigued me. Barbara Bolton Cornett, originally from London, KY, is an avid traveler and loves exploring the world and its many fascinating places. contemplativevisionsphotography.com

The Hardin Valley Project is a new exhibition of photographs showing the development of Hardin Valley over the last three years. Emily Greenquist received her BFA in Photography from Brigham Young University – Idaho. She has lived and photographed all over the country and has been in Knoxville since 2019. Instagram @emilyldgreenquist

Daughter Land is an experiment in chaos and control: Summer Small’s acrylic and oil paintings are a double exposure forged from a deep well of folklore and traditional craft juxtaposed against her experience of growing up as daughter of modern Appalachia. She depicts the strange as it is familiar, and the familiar as it is mysterious and ephemeral.

Summer Small is a self-taught visual artist who has spent her life exploring and evolving her emotional and aesthetic vision and developing the technical skills to execute that vision in diverse media, always inspired by her upbringing and community in Southern Appalachia. Instagram @SummerSmallStudio | Read more

Faces, thoughts, narratives, and emotion are what ‘talk’ to me. I want a story or a feeling to cover my canvas. Power and spirit, color and texture, visual energy and magical wonder are all interwoven into my paintings. Reality has very little to do with the intention of my final image.

Diana Ferguson, also known as DiFergi, is an internationally recognized and awarded visual artist. difergi.com | Instagram @difergiart

Creating art is something I do every day. I get inspiration from music, photography, nature, and anything that surrounds me.

Born in Philadelphia, PA, Deb Mazz Cikovic has been an artist and creator of original concepts in art since the late 1970s. She is currently best known for paintings in oils, ink, and acrylic pouring as well as one-of-a-kind epoxy work. ybcreativesart.com | Instagram @ybcreatives

Join us for FREE live music beginning at 6 PM!

Deep in the Appalachian Mountains, “Ben McLaughlin” creates folk music that sounds like an electrified awakening. “Ben McLaughlin” is from the same place that you are from. Walking the delicate line between being Nobody and being God, with sound as the medium, this human channels music through the pursuit of dissecting emotions and trauma. benmclaughlinmusic.com