Collaborations by Tad Lauritzen Wright and Hamlett Dobbins
Founded in 2008
Bios
In the spring of 2008 Hamlett Dobbins and Tad Lauritzen Wright bought two nice, big Holbein sketchbooks to share. In the spirit of friendship they traded these books back and forth for many years. One of them would start a drawing, laying down a riff, and the other would respond following the other’s lead. From time to time they would meet in Hamlett’s studio to paint and visit. In 2010 Mellow Mountain Coalition was included in a group show of collaborative work, We Like Each Other, at Concordia University in Seward, Nebraska and in 2013 they were in Co-lab at Kevin Mitchell’s Nu Gallery on Broad and in All My Rowdy Friends at Mark Nowell’s Rozelle Warehouse. That same year Mellow Mountain Coalition were shown at the Leu Art Gallery at Belmont University in Nashville.
When Hamlett returned from Rome in August of 2014, he and Tad began meeting more regularly. Once their kids are dropped off at school the two hole up in the sweet little studio behind Tad’s house. They listen to loud music, tell each other inappropriate stories, and paint together. In the winter of 2015 they had their first solo show a Glitch, an alternative space run by Adam Farmer in Memphis.
A native of Tennessee, Hamlett Dobbins spent most of his life in Memphis. He has received grants from the Pollock Krasner Foundation, the Tennessee Arts Commission’s Individual Artists Grant, and an ArtsMemphis Accelerator Grant. He has shown his work throughout the region as well as abroad. For the last fifteen years Dobbins has been active in the art community in Memphis working as a curator, a writer, and a teacher. From 2001 to 2013 he was the director of the Clough-Hanson Gallery at Rhodes College where he also taught. From 2004 to 2013 he ran a non-commercial alternative space called Material where he provided exhibition opportunities for nearly a hundred artists. In 2013 he was awarded the Rome Prize and spent eleven months as a fellow at the American Academy in Rome.
Tad Lauritzen Wright grew up in San Angelo, Texas consuming rodeo, punk rock, playboy, cheap beer, shotguns, cartoons, farm trucks, skateboarding, Mexican border towns, and junkyard culture. Art came in the form of crappy posters won at the rodeo carnival ring toss, velvet posters of heavy metal bands, and handmade cowboy boots. Art did not exist until he was surrounded by high school stoners making homemade bongs. Lauritzen Wright saw a teacup covered in fur in a picture in art class and thought he could make art if that was really art. He have learned a great deal more about art but has stayed connected to his own history. His work has been shown extensively throughout the United States including venues like the Katonah Museum of Art in New York, the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock, the Brooks Museum of Art in Memphis, Scope Miami, Art LA, Bridge Chicago, and Pulse NYC. Recent exhibitions have included Cheryl Hazan Gallery in New York, David Lusk Gallery in Memphis, and at ACME Gallery in Los Angeles.
Exhibitions
2019
Mellow Mountain Coalition has a solo show up at Whitespace’s Whitespec in Atlanta from January 11 through February 9, 2019.
2017
Mellow Mountain Coalition: European Vacation, (solo show) Organized by Emily Jenkins and Marco, Madrid, Spain.
Mellow Mountain Coalition, (solo show) Mason-Scharfenstein Museum of Art, Piedmont College, Demorest, Georgia.
The Price is Right, David Lusk Gallery, Memphis & Nashville, Tennessee.
Mellow Mountain Coalition: Caboose! (solo show), Chattanooga Choo Choo organized by TNContemporary, Chattanooga, Tennessee.
2016
The Price is Right, David Lusk Gallery, Memphis & Nashville, Tennessee.
2015
Mellow Mountain Coalition: Born to Hula (solo show), Glitch, Memphis, Tennessee.
2013
We Like Each Other, Leu Art Gallery, Belmont University, Nashville, Tennessee.
All My Rowdy Friends, The Rozelle Warehouse, Memphis, Tennessee.
Co-Lab, Nu Gallery, Memphis, Tennessee.
2012
The Price is Right, David Lusk Gallery, Memphis, Tennessee.
2010
We Like Each Other, Marxhausen Gallery of Art, Concordia University, Seward, Nebraska.
Reviews
Commercial Appeal Fredric Keoppel, Colorful Coalition, January 23, 2015.
Memphis Flyer Eileen Townsend, Head Turners, January 22, 2015.
Tad
Lauritzen
Wright
lauritzenwright@gmail.com | lauritzenwright.com
Solo Exhibitions
2017 David Lusk Gallery, Memphis, TN. The Politics of Power
2016 Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, AR. Continual Myth
2016 Koelsch Gallery, Houston, TX. Wrong Way Into Juarez
2015 Koelsch Gallery, Houston, TX. The Dark Forest
2015 David Lusk Gallery, Nashville, TN. Instructions Included
2015 Glitch, Memphis, TN. Heads (Collaborations with Hamlett Dobbins)
2014 David Lusk Gallery, Memphis, TN. The Bacchus Sessions
2013 Cheryl Hazan Gallery, NYC,NY., From the Foothills of Ambiguity
2012 Pulse, New York, NY. Smile Heavy Sessions
2012 David Lusk Gallery, Memphis, TN. Garden and Gun
2010 Concept Gallery, Memphis, TN. Permagrin
2010 David Lusk Gallery, Memphis,TN. Liberated Landscape
2010 Anderson O’Brien Fine Art, Omaha, NE. Playscape
2008 David Lusk Gallery, Memphis, TN. The Fun Show
2008 Koelsch Gallery, Houston, TX. Single Line Drawings
2008 Millsaps College, Jackson, MS. The Plot Thickens
Group Exhibitions
2016 Cuevas Tilleard Gallery, New York, NY. Paper Cuts
2016 Mild Climate, Nashville, TN. MMC Recent Drawings
2016 Flight of the Peacock, COOP Gallery, Nashville, TN.
2016 Big Fun, Sumter Gallery of Art, Sumter, SC.
2015 Game Day, David Lusk Gallery, Memphis, TN.
2015 Houston Fine Art Fair, Houston, Tx.
2014 Scope Miami, Miami, FL.
2014 David Lusk Gallery, Nashville, TN., Opening
2013 Co-Lab, Nu Gallery, Memphis, TN.
2013 Pulp, Beta Pics Maus Contemporary, Birmingham, AL.
2013 Art Miami, Miami, FL.
2013 Furload, Glitch Gallery, Memphis, TN.
2013 New Southern Vernacular, Blend Studio, Nashville, TN.
2013 New Southern Vernacular, Elder Gallery, Lincoln, NE.
2013 Words Matter, Memphis, TN
2012 ACME Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2012 Art Miami, Miami, FL.
2012 Houston Art Fair, Houston, TX.
2012 Price Is Right, David Lusk Gallery, Memphis, TN
2012 Cheryl Hazan Contemporary Art, New York, NY. Three
2012 Cheryl Hazan Contemporary Art, New York, NY. Mark My Words
Publications
New American Paintings 2015, issue 118 Cover Artist
New American Paintings 2011, issue 94
Memphis Commercial Appeal, March 2008
Memphis Commercial Appeal, January 2008
Plush You Catalog, 2008
Ex-PAts
New American Paintings 2007, issue 70
Confessions Catalog, 2006
I love the Burbs, 2006
Memphis Commercial Appeal, December 2006
Memphis Commercial Appeal, October 2006
New Orleans Trienniel Catalog, 2005
Times – Picayune 2005
The Omaha Reader, 2005
New American Paintings 2004, issue 52
Memphis Commercial Appeal, 8 October 2004
New American Paintings 2002, issue 40
Lincoln Journal Star, 14 July 2002
Memphis Business Journal, 12-18 July 2002
Bluff Papers, 2000
Daily Nebraskan, 1999
Education
Bachelor of Fine Arts
Nebraska Wesleyan University, 1994
Master of Fine Arts
Memphis College of Art, 2002
Representation
David Lusk Gallery, Memphis/ Nashville TN.
Koelsch Gallery, Houston TX.
Anderson O’Brien Fine Art, Omaha NE.
Hamlett
Dobbins
hamlettdobbins@hotmail.com | hamlettdobbins.com
Education
1999 University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, Master of Fine Arts.
1998 University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, Master of Arts.
1993 University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee, Bachelor of Fine Arts.
Grants, Awards and Residencies
2014 ArtsAccelerator Grant, ArtsMemphis
2013-2014 Fellow, The Jules Guerin Rome Prize in Visual Arts, American Academy in Rome, Italy
2010 Nominated for the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant
2009 Nominated for the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant
2003 Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant
2000 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant
Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, three month residency, Omaha, Nebraska.
Vermont Studio Center, four week fellowship, Johnson, Vermont.
1999 Best of Show, Arts in the Park Juried Show, Jerry Saltz, juror.
1998-1999 Pelzer-Lynch Fellowship for Graduate Students in Painting. University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
Recent & Upcoming Exhibitions
2018 Chaos and Information curated by Mark Scala, Frist Center for Visual Arts, Nashville, Tennessee.
2017 Mellow Mountain Coalition: Recent work, organized by Emily Jenkins, Madrid, Spain.
Drawing Performance, organized by James Bockelman, (Old Man Study Group collaborations with Douglas Degges), Marxhausen Gallery of Art, Concordia University, Seward, Nebraska and Inga Kondeyne Galerie, Berlin, Germany.
Mellow Mountain Coalition: All the Pain on the Inside (collaboration with Tad Lauritzen Wright), Mason-Scharfenstein Museum of Art, Piedmont College, Demorest, Georgia.
Mellow Mountain Coalition: Caboose! (collaboration with Tad Lauritzen Wright), Chattanooga, Tennessee.
2017 I Will Have to Tell You Everything, (one person show), David Lusk Gallery, Nashville, Tennessee.
2016 I Will Have to Tell You Everything, (one person show), David Lusk Gallery, Memphis, Tennessee.
Sant’Ivo, (one person show), Medicine Factory, Memphis, Tennessee.
The Attendant, (one person show), Gatewood Gallery, University of North Carolina Greensboro.
2015 The Attendant (one person show), The Martha and Robert Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art, University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee.
Soft Eyes, organized by Pete Schulte, Whitespace Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia.
Old Man Study Group, (Collaborations with Douglas Degges), Southfork Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee.
Untitled (for A.J.F.), (one person show), Glitch, Memphis, Tennessee.
Lovey Town: We Got Spirit, Yes We Do, Organized by Michael Velliquette, Unity Gallery, Fairfield, Iowa.
Selected Reviews and Publications
Art Papers
Susan Knowles, Review of Early Morning Paintings at David Lusk Gallery, page 48, November/December 2005.
Burnaway
Erica Ciccarone, Hamlett Dobbins and Douglas Degges on Artistic Collaboration, June 19, 2015.
Joe Nolan, All About Me, January 10, 2017
Commercial Appeal
Fredric Keoppel, Abstracts Peer into Realms both Microscopic, Cosmic, Sept 23, 2016.
Fredric Keoppel, Hamlett Dobbins at Fogelman Gallery, August 26, 2015.
The Memphis Flyer
Chris Davis, Material Man, July 11, 2013.
Carol Knowles, First Light, page 34, July 21-27, 2005.
Nashville Scene
Joe Nolan, In the Abstract, August 8, 2013.
David Maddox, Hillsbroro Village Blues, June 29, 2006.
New Art Examiner
David McCarthy, Studio Visit, February 2000.
Representation
David Lusk Gallery, Memphis/ Nashville TN.