This is the last week for the UT Downtown Gallery exhibition Crave, featuring the works of five artists using paint and photographs to explore craving, longing for and the yearning for something. Their diverse work is unified by an attachment of charged images and obsessive processes that speak to this underlying appetite for craving.

The exhibition was initiated by former UT artist-in-residence Pinkney Herbert of Memphis and organized by Memphis arts organization Delta Axis and curated by artist and Albright College Professor in Redding, Penn., Matthew Garrison. The exhibit features the work of Joel Carreiro, Thomas Weaver and Brian Wood from New York City, Betsy Chaffin of South Carolina, and Amanda Sparks of Mississippi, and is on display now through Friday, Feb. 1.

Cravings stem from primal urges seeking satiation. Artists, intuitively and through practiced perception, are especially aware of their personal cravings and cognizant of the cravings of their audience. In the exhibition, these artists recognize the process of craving as a creative force in itself – a force capable of propelling their work into fresh observations, new methodologies and concepts.

"Almost all cravings are open to interpretation. Craving a cigarette in one society can be seen as acceptable social behavior, another might see it as harmful, and yet another as immoral. ‘Men are but children of a larger appetite, … full of cravings,’ Dryden writes, ‘…with appetites as apt to change as theirs.’ But, judgment and fickleness aside, cravings for the artist are a force of the moment, generating demands that, in turn, can instigate new cravings. A demand met might be empowering, a demand unanswered devastating; a demand devoid of action indicative of hopelessness or self-restraint." -Matthew Garrison, curator of Crave.

The UT Downtown Gallery is located at 106 South Gay Street. Hours: Wednesday – Friday, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. Admission is free. For more info call 673-0802 or visit the gallery Web site.

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