I met Toni Turbeville approximately 15 years ago in a class at the University of South Carolina. We weren’t incredibly fond of each other at first but had many of the same friends and ended up together on a regular basis.

I thought she was a big mouth; she thought I was a, well, a bitch. Eventually, all of our friends had other classes, and it was just the two of us–alone together.

The friendship stuck in a manner I never thought imaginable. We have been on hideous road trips to Union, SC (don’t ask), been through both divorces and re-marriages (and the bridesmaid dresses that go with them), co-owned a business (with a partners desk) and co-managed multiple rock bands.

We have survived the bitter ugliness of truths that cannot be unsaid. We have shared art, too much wine and enough nicotine to kill a horse. We have fought the bulge– both winning and losing depending on the year.

She is the god-mother of my child.

She is talented and funny and way off center in a delightful way. Why should you care? In addition to being a great artist, designer, and public relations maven, she has a talent for the written word. And finally, after years of stops and starts, she has published Toni’s Treehouse–a blog capturing the whimsy of childhood, the necessity of laundry, and all the vittles you can whip up in a hurry while life passes you in a blur.

Art & Art Deadlines.com is proud to be the Featured Sponsor of Toni’s Treehouse for the month of February. It is about babies and motherhood and television and cooking and everything and nothing. It brightens my day and inspires me to get off the couch…if only to put on clean pajamas. The Everyone has Garbage post almost made me wet my pants. Visit and Enjoy!

Just a short note to let you know you can see Pieces of Me: Fat (pictured left) in the Metropolitan Knoxville Airport.  514 entries from 120 artists were received, and 41 pieces were selected for the show.  To see all the pieces in the show, view the visit the Arts & Culture Alliance .

The Metropolitan Knoxville Airport Authority (McGhee Tyson Airport) and the Arts & Culture Alliance of Greater Knoxville are pleased to present “Arts in the Airport”, a new exhibition featuring selected artwork. “Arts in the Airport” was developed to allow regional artists to compete and display work in the most visited site in the area.

The selected art features contemporary 2-dimensional artwork and will be exhibited in the secured area behind McGhee Tyson Airport’s security gate checkpoint from November 5, 2009 – April 22, 2010.

This call for entry was featured on ArtAndArtDeadlines.com and had NO ENTRY FEE!  Get to work–No excuses!

PSYCHOMACHIA (meaning Battle of Souls) is the newest series done in collaboration with Arizona-based artist Jerry Portelli. This work reinterprets the Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Holy Virtues in a series of 14 diptychs, one from each artist. The aesthetic theme is the sideshow freak from the circus and fairs of yesteryear–nature’s artwork, if you will.

We seek to honor the sideshow freak as the masque form of the very best and very worst of humanity, regardless of individual morality. This work is wrapped in a celebration of the possibilities of digital media and rejects the pervasive sort of embarassment of digital alteration in photography. The use of square canvases in Psychomachia is meant to echo the pixel of which all digital images is comprised.

The work is ongoing as of October, 2009. I have been sworn to keep the images under wraps until the show opens; however, I think the Clown God will let just a puzzle-piece of two works (see below) out of the bag just for you.

“For years I have used the clown mask as a means by which the ordinary becomes the extraordarinary. However, in the Psychomachia series, I
was able to use the clown mask as masque of the common in favor of the extraordinary spirit of the human condition via the sideshow freak of yesteryear — both real and imagined. The Seven Deadly Sins & Seven Holy Virtues simply add a layer of unexpected judgement of intent to the physical reality.”

–Jerry Portelli, the Clown God

“My work habit is to explore the physical reality of my reverence for human potential with ‘self as other’ as reoccurring content. The Psychomachia series, challenged me to not rely on facial expression. While every face is unique, humanity regardless of culture or language recognizes facial expression as the key to discovering the true soul. Limiting use of the face allowed me to further explore the physcial uniqueness upon which the Seven Deadly Sins & Seven Holy Virtues provide the crux of judgement allowing acceptance of the physical.”

–R.L. Gibson, the Xerographist

“Pieces of Me began when I moved to Gatlinburg in 2007. In a bid to simplify our lives, my husband Jon, my son Oscar and I decided to write a list of places we wanted to live. At the top of the list was Paducah, KY because of the Artist Relocation Program, Nashville because of the vibrant downtown music scene, and Gatlinburg for the beauty of the Great Smoky Mountains. We visited each town, and for many reasons (none of which should diminish the loveliness of the losers), Gatlinburg won.

“We moved to a tiny 900 square foot, furnished ski chalet on top of a mountain. Bought a 4-wheel drive and sold almost everything else we owned. My husband went to work as an art gallery consultant immediately, and I stayed home with my then 8-year-old son for the duration of the summer.

“We took the theme ‘simplify our lives’ to the extreme that summer: 1 car…no cable…no telephone. Despite not being overly domestic, I found myself stranded on the top of a Tennessee mountain in a tiny house with nothing to do and no way to leave. The only thing we didn’t sell were all things artistic. How did we entertain ourselves? A bag of theatrical gray-scale makeup, great costume accessories, the trusty Olympus Digital Camera, and remote shutter release. Sue. Sally. Sara was one of the first pieces in the series (see below).

“Having spent years manipulating the Xerography technique originally taught to me by SC artist Kim LeMasters, Pieces of Me was born. And, while I have done lots of other work since that time, I’m still adding to the series. Enjoy a selection of work from Pieces of Me by clicking on the slideshow below; please note there is some nudity. I hope you love them. They feature the commonly used vehicle of self as other as a salute to my reverence for human potential.” –R.L. Gibson

As an homage to the new interactive R.L. Gibson site, I thought we could all take a little trip down memory lane with some work from the past.  Speak No Evil is not my favorite series to date; however, it is a step in my development as an artist that I cherish.  Enjoy! 

Speak No Evil, 2006 – 2007

Artist’s Statement: “I am an Objectivist–that is, I believe in objective reality. I believe that words have meanings, and I enjoy the debate that asks, ‘Who defines a language?’ Is a language–be it written, spoken or aesthetic–defined by the user or some other hierarchy of trusted caretakers? And why are people often offended by truth–not the ugly, hurtful truth, but the sky-is-blue truth? How does context change definition and intention? My work explores these questions. I’m not ceratin the answers are clear to me although I do not doubt the existence of the objective truth of the answers–an odd sort of faith from a distinctly unspiritual woman.

“I am deeply influenced by my role as a southern born and reared woman. I have a great love of southern language with all of its innuendos, euphemisms and passive tones that mak a long history of eccentricities, unpopular opinions and niceties. I ws spoon-fed ‘If you can’t say something nice…’ but it wasn’t well digested. Does the adage ‘Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil’ function without ‘Think No Evil?’ This body of work juxtaposes exasperatingly high moral standars against the public question of excruciatingly low moral fortitude and asks, is ‘Speak No Evil’ an acceptable substitute for ‘Think No Evil?’ while posing the personal queston ‘Am I a truth teller?’ or just not a ‘Well-Behaved Woman?’ ” –R.L. Gibson

Click below for a slideshow of Speak No Evil.

See the what critic Michaela Pilar Brown said about Speak No Evil:

“In this series of xerographic prints, Gibson challenges patriarchal conventions about truth, morality, and freedom in a culture increasingly driven along a path to homogeneity, and a return to the exclusion and marginalization of unpopular opinions and ideas. Gibson employs the use of text throughout these images to call attention to the use of language.

“Words attached to art imbue meaning and effect interpretation often more powerfully than images alone. It musts be noted that Gibson makes use of the red editor’s pen. The images are simple, and words are used with brevity. Challenging large ideas with such an economy of words and simple images leaves room in Gibson’s work for both comic relief and austerity.

“Her use of text is both a nod to its literary origin, and a subversive tyrannical act, to make the viewer question both meaning and use in a broader context. In the work ‘Such a Pretty Face,’ Gibson addresses the notion of hiding criticism in a compliment. It begs the questions, in a postmodern world, a world of rapidly exchanged text, ticker tape, and irretrievable digital burps, who owns the language? Can words live in static form? Do they evolve? When are they weapon, propaganda, song?

“In the triptych ‘See, Hear & Speak,’ Gibson addresses the notion of turning a blind eye to evil. It is an image and phrase familiar to most Americans, so familiar in fact that the phrase ‘see no hear no speak no evil’ conjures images of a monkey covering its eyes, mouth and ears and the reverse. A doll’s head has replaced the monkeys. This simple change destroys the kitschy-ness of the image, and presents a more human question. The doll’s head floating against a flat background robs it of its innocence. By ignoring evil are we not responsible for its growth?”

–Michaela Pilar Brown, 2007 as Director of Gallery 107 North

Thank you for your patience while RLGibson.com was under construction!

In 2008, I was privileged to have PR Maven Toni Turbeville design and launch a beautiful website in promotion of my work as R.L. Gibson.  As always, Turbeville listened and responded to my desire for a simple, mono-chromatic site that gave the bare basics of my work and my statement in this world as an artist.

Here’s what the site used to look like:

Developments over the past year, including the launch of a new series Psychomachia with Arizona-based artist Jerry Portelli, the launch of a new art blog ArtAndArtDeadlines.com, and the requests from my peers and fans to offer current updates on the work coming out of my 42 square-foot studio–Well, they all resulted in this relaunch of my site in a format that allows you to leave comments, receive automated updates by email, and get a closer look at the work behind the work.

Welcome, I’m glad you’re here.  Take a minute and subscribe by email.

–R.L. Gibson