KNOXVILLE, TN.- The Knoxville Museum of Art recently opened SubUrban: Charlotta Westergren as the second exhibition in the SubUrban Series. The exhibition will run through April 4, 2004. Westergren, a guest artist in the School of Art at the University of Tennessee this semester, is creating works specifically for this exhibition, one of which the museum has commissioned for its permanent collection.

Westergren began her career in architecture and actually worked on plans for KMA’s building at one point. She creates works that are inspired by a mix of fantasy and memories of her childhood in Sweden. Her artwork is simultaneously experimental, playful, ephemeral and deeply imaginative with subtle feminist overtones. Major influences in Westergren’s work include Swedish folklore and the ties that Swedes have with the natural world. Westergren’s works are meticulously executed; she uses acrylic or oil paint on unusual fabrics, such as gold and silver lamé, and adds rhinestones to heighten the ethereal effect. In the last year, she has began to move from a fabric surface to wood and aluminum covered with car paint.

For her exhibition at the museum, she will specifically be creating a 30-foot long installation of nearly 50,000 large paillettes (sequins) that will form the image of a giant iceberg, again hearkening back to her Nordic upbringing. The paillettes will move as a fan gently blows at them, causing the individual parts to flicker and sparkle and the entire piece to appear iridescent. The Iceberg installation will become part of the museum’s permanent collection at the end of the exhibition. A second installation will focus on 4 leaf clovers that will be growing in the gallery, allowing visitors to see the change and progression in the work. Four leaf clovers occur rarely in nature (generally 1 for every 100,000) and Westergren is currently collaborating with scientists at the University of Tennessee to try to lower that number to 1 in 15. Other works in the KMA exhibition will include paintings borrowed from private collections around the country, from both her fairy and mushroom series and her birch woods series.

SubUrban: Charlotta Westergren is presented by Proffitt’s. Additional sponsors include Color Central, Metro Pulse, the Lucille S. Thompson Family Foundation, and 93.1 The Point.

SubUrban is a series of solo exhibitions focusing on the most thoughtful, innovative and engaging work by the finest emerging international talent in contemporary art.

About The Artist - Born in Sweden and is based in Brooklyn, New York., Westergren has a Master in Fine Arts from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and a BA from Columbia University in Architecture. She has been included in several group exhibitions around the country and in Europe, and has been awarded residencies at PS 1 Contemporary Art Center in New York and at the Bernis Center for Contemporary Art. Her paintings and installations are also in a number of private collections. This will be her first solo US museum exhibition, and also the first time that KMA is commissioning a work from an artist for its permanent collection.