Maggie Exner the Magnificent
Maggie works as On-Call Admissions Coordinator and in the catering department at the Brooks. When she's not at work (rare), she's plugging away creating new forms both sculpturally and two-dimensionally. Typically, my work explores themes of human experience in particular environments through the form of drawing. In my drawings I create strange environments that are reminiscent of the real world but heavily animated. These become the playing grounds for imaginative characters that interact with their surroundings.
Last Friday, Exner turned a typical dive bar into an art space wonderland by installing decorated sculptures mimicking clouds and heat juxtaposed with paintings, drawings, and other mediums. Her work is not only unique, but challenges other artists to go beyond their imagination into another realm of creativity.
The environment I am creating in this show is one familiar to most people spending their summers in Memphis: hot, miserable, and uninspiring. Our appetites and television sets drive most of our daily decisions. Yet, visually, the dark reality of the matter is understated, concealed by the bright, colorful, and chaotic elements of the installation: swirls of recreated sunlight, cotton candy ice cream cones, and detachable plastic limbs, just to name a few. The characters are real people who I will fashion according to the aesthetics of my work through costume and makeup. As the characters wander through this fantastic world, they add life and movement to the installation, becoming caught up in the “Heat Wave.” Essentially, Heat Wave is a fun, colorful distraction, one that will satisfy your visual and social appetite, if only for a little while.
To read an article about Maggie and her show in The Memphis Flyer, click here.
To see an extended body of her work, click here.