As a part of the Mississippi Museum of Art‘s “Unburied Treasures” series which combines speakers, writers, artists, and musicians, Mississippi State University John Grisham Professor Brent Funderburk will speak at the Museum in Jackson, Mississippi on December 15, 2009.
Funded in part by a grant from the Mississippi Humanities Council, “Unburied Treasures: Welcome to the Collection” centers around an artwork of the Mississippi River by Will Henry Stevens. The evening collaborative will feature Funderburk’s slide talk “Will Henry Stevens’ Big River- Inside and Outside”, along with a reading from Mark Twain by JSU professor, Dr, Patsy Daniels, as well as a live musical performance responsive to the theme of the cultural influence of the Mississippi River.
Funderburk, an artist and a curator, is presently working on a touring exhibition and book about the Indiana born artist Stevens (and other Southern visionaries), who taught at Tulane University and spent much of his life amid the natural wonders of the Gulf Coast and the Appalachian Mountains- an experience shared by Funderburk. “Like the mythic work of Walter Anderson, Steven’s abstract and representational paintings bridged a deep inner vision of the universal harmony of life with keen observation of the intricacies and moods of his local Nature.”
In 2008 and 2009, Funderburk’s “Ecstasy- The Mystical Landscapes of Walter Anderson” toured museums in Tennessee, Florida and Mississippi, with lectures by the Guest Curator for the Walter Anderson Museum of Art.
The program will begin at 6:00 PM in the Trustmark Grand Hall of the Museum.