On December 8th 2017 Roger Allan Cleaves is having a reception for his art exhibition, The Forget Me Nots. The show opens on November 24th 2017 and runs until the reception. This showing will consist of twenty works of art ranging from large paintings to pedestal sculptures. Cleaves work is a mixture of narrative storytelling, figurative abstraction, and graphic iconography. Finding a harmony between the formal elements of art and contemporary concerns is the aim of his studio practice.
The Forget Me Nots is an exhibition based on a short story written by Cleaves whose protagonist explores strange lands while enduring calamities and misadventures. The exhibition picks up at a point in the story when a garden is discovered and the explorer becomes fascinated by the inhabitants. The main character is entranced by a particular species in the garden because they resemble visual elements from his homeland. The sight of these new discoveries sparks an attachment inside the narrator- forcing him to come to terms with his own past. After the decision is made to forgo his travels the protagonist decides to spend extended time in the land of the Forget Me Nots. During this time he learns how to communicate with the dwellers of the garden and stories are shared about their individual histories, the written language of the land, called the Afroglypics, and the ever looming threat of the Danger Gods.
Cleaves received his Bachelors of Fine Arts from the University of Memphis. During his tenure at the University of Memphis he was awarded the Ellen Battell Stoekel fellowship to attend Yale’s Summer Residency for the Arts. After completing his undergraduate studies Cleaves was offered a three year fellowship to attend the University of Wisconsin at Madison where he earned his Masters of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing. Cleaves work has been featured in numerous publications that span an international range. Most recently, Cleaves was awarded a state grant through the Mississippi Art Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.