The art exhibit at the Hixson Walmart by Iantha Newton
The art exhibit at the Hixson Walmart by Iantha Newton
The art exhibit at the Hixson Walmart by Iantha Newton
Hixson Walmart is currently partnering with local ArtsBuild grant awardee Iantha Newton and is hosting a pop up art exhibit in the Walmart Supercenter.
Ms. Newton is an artist living and working in Chattanooga. The artwork featured at Walmart is an 8' x 9' acrylic/canvas. The assembled six panel painting is the result of a project entitled “You Come to Art - Art Comes to You: Walmart Pop-Up Art Exhibit”.
This large scale artwork was created specifically for this project with a grant award from ArtsBuild’s “Artists Work” grant program and serves the purpose of presenting an immersive art experience to Walmart shoppers and staff in a non formal environment that is casual and familiar such as the check out counters at the local Walmart - thus eliciting feelings of relaxation and pleasant thoughts in the shoppers and staff alike.
The exhibit centers around the symbolic portrayal of the Garden of Eden and its theme of abundant life.
"Through my large-scale artwork, I aim to offer visitors an immersive art experience that celebrates the beauty of nature and the life abundant therein," said Ms. Newton. "Nature’s timeless narratives resonate with us all.
"In the same way that Walmart founders established an arts museum in the Bentonville community - for the whole nation in fact - I, in my small capacity as an individual artist, am paralleling that initiative in that I have for a temporary moment at least installed a work of fine-art (such as would normally be found in art museums and galleries) in the shopping center of Hixson Walmart."
Walmart managers Kathryn Fine and Cassius Anderson have with the blessing of their supervisor facilitated this project by their willingness to help to see this project installed in their store.
Ms. Newton is the co-founder of local youth arts non-profit SPLASH and along with her husband Charlie, received the Ruth Holmsberg Award last year.