Join us First Friday May 2nd from 6-9pm for our quarterly OPEN HOUSE event! We’ll have a new exhibition Seeds by local artist Andrew Godwin in the Relay Ridge Gallery + OPEN STUDIOS with the RR Resident Studio Artists + Save-an-Old-Oak-Tree Fundraising with dogwood design printing in the printshop

Andrew Godwin uses drawing and painting to explore the connections that exist between all things.

His current body of work balances realism and ambiguity so that multiple subjects read simultaneously, as relatives. Have you ever looked closely inside a snail shell, a pinecone, or a sweetgum ball and began to imagine landscapes, or recognize patterns, or discover a sensuality you didn’t feel before? It’s like that.

The ubiquity ofboth the subject matter (walnuts, grapes, seeds) and the means of making (pencil and paper) accentuate the sense of closeness and attention by stripping away all other distractions. Together, they say “This is a way to see and think about the world around you as a rich, connected whole.”

This philosophical approach to the physical world connects him to other searchers devoted to deeply personal readings of their environments, from the forest meditations of Thomas Nozkowski to the quotidian revelations of Catherine Murphy and Mary Oliver.

His creative practice is heavily influenced by his running practice, a meditative endeavor including trail runs over thirty miles that allow both immersion in isolated places and a mental and emotional transformation that opens physical experience to metaphysical meaning.

He and his partner Susanne Tarovella are the principal architects of Sparkman & Associates Architects, Inc. in Knoxville, TN, where he also taught drawing and design studios at the University of Tennessee from 2005-2019.