Join us at the Garden to cover our fourth seasonal exhibition before it opens. Rich Soil at the Garden was created by American artist Kristine Mays and features 29 sculptures in seven groupings placed throughout the 96-acre grounds of the Garden.
 
The exhibition opens to the general public on May 5 with an MBG Member Preview Evening on May 4.

Kristine Mays, Rich Soil Artist, and Gina Harris, Memphis Botanic Garden's Director of Education & Events, plus other key staff will be available for interviews.

Memphis Botanic Garden
750 Cherry Road; Memphis, TN 38117

The exhibition is on view from May 5-October 1.

About Kristine Mays
Kristine Mays currently lives and works in San Francisco, California. She has been an exhibiting artist since 1993. Mays seeks to create change with her art, creating socially conscious works of beauty that speak to social issues. She has participated in programming at the De Young Museum, the Museum of African Diaspora (MoAD), and exhibited at the California African American Museum (CAAM). Mays is represented by Modernism Inc. Gallery. Her work is a part of the permanent collection at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, CA. Collectors of her work include Star Wars creator George Lucas and collector/philanthropist Peggy Cooper Cafritz, with her work also displayed in many private collections throughout the United States.

About Rich Soil
Rich Soil, created by American artist Kristine Mays, is inspired by the movements and gestures of Alvin Ailey’s dance composition “Revelations.” The exhibition features 29 sculptures in seven groupings placed throughout the 96-acre grounds of the Garden. Each sculpture consists of thousands of pieces of wire hooked and looped together to create these intriguing forms which pay honor to ancestors–those that walked, lived on, and tended to this land–to the lives that have been overlooked and “forgotten” within our history. These forms deliver a message of strength while challenging how we view ourselves and others. Within the confines of hard metal wire is a sense of resilience and perseverance–a need to push forward and thrive. The work also speaks to identity–the question of who we are, what we can do with our lives, and the impact our lives have on the world. The implied movement in the works evokes expressive gestures through the delicate balance between perceived fragility and realized strength.