Adrienne Outlaw explores the often conflicting dialog among science, nature and religion. Exploring a world she sees as beautiful yet dangerous, nourishing yet cruel, Outlaw considers the contradictions that develop as people grapple to balance the dichotomy between emotional and intellectual thought in an increasingly technological world. Manipulating and reassembling naturally protective materials, such as porcupine quills, human hair and beeswax, with industrial products including metal, plastic and high-tech fabrics, Outlaw references emotions “best contained in polite society.” Understood in this light, the works reveal our fear of the unknown and our desire for transcendence. This emerging artist has been recognized with grants, fellowships and inclusion in several museum and public art collections throughout the United States including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Colorado, the Mobile Museum of Art in Alabama and the Cheekwood Museum of Art in Tennessee. Her work was also recently commissioned for the of the U.S. Embassy’s permanent collection in Abuja, Nigeria. Outlaw’s work has been reviewed in Sculpture, Art Papers and Fiberarts magazines and featured in books including Creating Traditions, Expanding Horizons: The Arts in Tennessee History; Faith and Vision: Twenty-five Years of Christians in the Visual Arts and The Art of Tennessee. Outlaw has guest taught and lectured at schools and museums including the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, SUNY Stony Brook and Nashville’s Frist Center for the Visual Arts. Outlaw holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and an MLAS from Vanderbilt University. She has served on the arts advisory boards of six arts organizations and has reported extensively on the arts for newspapers, magazines and radio. Her latest project has been to develop the web site, http://www.nashville.areaarts.org, a program that links artists to writers and curators. Outlaw lives and works in Nashville,
