UNCA Art Faculty Honored with Award at
Southeastern College Art Conference

"Wilderness" by Virginia Derryberry from Convergence

Convergence, an art exhibition featuring the work of five artists, recently received the 2003 Southeastern College Art Conference Award for Outstanding Exhibition and Catalog of Contemporary Materials. This award is given in recognition of an exhibition of contemporary materials, which by its design, installation, and/or catalogue is considered exemplary.

Convergence is an exhibition conceived and curated by five university women artists, including painter Virginia Derryberry, UNCA associate professor of art. Virginia Spivey, UNCA assistant professor of art, wrote the catalog introduction.

Convergence has been shown at the Erie Art Museum in Erie, Pa., the Gallery at Carillon in Charlotte and the University of Tennessee Ewing Gallery of Art. It is scheduled for exhibition at the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia, S.C. from January 31-April 25. Other featured artists in the exhibition are Von Allen, Reni Gower, Alison Helm and Virginia Scotchie.

A Tennessee native, Derryberry is an actively exhibiting artist. She has held six solo exhibitions at the Cumberland Gallery in Nashville, Tenn., and recently completed a commission for the Knoxville Convention Center. Her paintings are also in the collections of the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Tennessee State Museum, the Morris Museum of Art, the West Virginia Permanent Collection and in such corporate collections as Nationsbank, HBO and the Nashville International Airport. In recent years, Derryberry has received two Individual Arts grants from the Georgia Council for the Arts as well as the Governor’s Award in West Virginia.

A Lumberton native, Spivey has joined UNCA’s Art Department in 2002. She holds a doctorate in art history from Case Western Reserve University. Previously, Spivey has taught at the University of Akron, the Akron Art Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

The Southeastern College Art Conference, a nonprofit organization, seeks to promote art in higher education through facilitating cooperation among teachers and administrators in university, colleges and junior colleges, professional art schools, and museums, who are concerned with the development of art in their respective institutions and communities served by their institutions.

Media Contacts:

• Tucker Cooke, UNCA Art Department Chair, 828/251-6559
• Jill Yarnall, UNCA Public Information Assistant Director, 828/251-6526