Big Ears Announces Art Exhibitions by Wayne White, Rob Mazurek, & More

In 2018, I flew to Nashville to catch 2 nights of WEEN performing their country tunes at the Ryman Auditorium. I left from there to shoot a pair of their concerts at the Tabernacle in Atlanta. While in Nashville, there was an exhibition by artist Wayne White that I was never able to make it to before leaving town.

Last year, there was a Wayne White exhibition as part of the Big Ears festival in Knoxville. I’m a huge fan of his work, from his iconic character and set design on Pee-wee’s Playhouse and his trademark word paintings to his work on music videos and album covers created for artists like Lambchop and X. First time back to Tennessee and another White exhibition? This was meant to be.

I even had a dream where I was on my way to Big Ears and ran into Wayne trying to get his paintings and oversized sculptures to the museum. When I met him and took the above photo in the courtyard at The Mill & Mine in Knoxville, I told him about it. He dryly joked that he was happy he could make my dream come true. But, here’s the thing… we never made it to see his show. We put it off, and when we tried to hit it up the last day of the festival, it had ended early.

I did it again…

The good news is that Big Ears just announced a group of art exhibitions they will be hosting at this year’s festival, and it looks like I have another opportunity to see White‘s work in person. Wayne is returning with a new show titled Revenge Of The Knoxville Girl, which will be on display at Knoxville Museum Of Art during the festival. DON’T MISS IT (like I keep doing).

Additionally, there will be 3 more solo exhibitions on display from artists Rob Mazurek, Andy Saftel, and Michael Weintrob, along with a group show curated by Ashley Layendecker.

Below is a statement from the Big Ears about their effort to incorporate visual art, followed by individual details for each exhibition.

“Big Ears has always believed that the festival experience extends beyond the stage. Each year, we partner with the Knoxville Museum of Art, UT’s Downtown Gallery, RED Gallery, and

the Emporium to present visual art exhibitions that live in conversation with the music — and occasionally blur the line between the two with surprise pop-up concerts right in the galleries. Here’s what we have in store for 2026.“

REVENGE OF THE KNOXVILLE GIRL  | WAYNE WHITE
March 26 – July 12 , 2026

Info via Knoxville Museum Of Art

“Presented in collaboration with the Big Ears festival, this solo exhibition celebrates multiple dimensions of Wayne White – an artist whose work across television, music, visual art, illustration, and design has left an indelible mark on pop culture with its sharp wit and irreverent imagination. Born and raised in Chattanooga, TN, White draws upon his memories of the South to transform the everyday into the mythical, showcasing his ability to turn humble materials into works that are at once epic and playful. This show will feature an eclectic mix of paintings, drawings, and small sculptures, as well as a monumental animatronic puppet that embodies the eccentric storytelling at the heart of White’s practice.”

To learn more about Wayne White, check out the documentary Beauty Is Embarrassing.

RADICAL CHIMERAS | ROB MAZUREK
February 28 – April 4, 2026

Info via UT Downtown Gallery

“Artist and composer Rob Mazurek presents a new body of work with an exhibition of paintings, sound generated animations, large-format sound prints and sculpture that converge into hybrid visual forms of one another. Timed to coincide with the visionary Big Ears Festival, the exhibition extends the festival’s spirit of innovation into the visual realm, offering attendees and the Knoxville community an immersive encounter with Mazurek’s interdisciplinary practice. Light, motion, and form carry the imprint of sound’s structure and energy. The moving chimeras, captured stills, painted surfaces complete a cyclical process of transformation. The chimera, a creature composed of three or more disparate parts, creates something new. For Mazurek, the chimera becomes a model for radical creation and refraction. His work is, fundamentally, about sound, even when no sound is heard. Sound becomes an organizing force, a pulse inside visual language. In Radical Chimeras, sonic vibration is translated into movement, modulation, and spatial structure. The work invites viewers to experience the visual behavior of sound rather than its acoustic form. The result is an environment of silent resonance, of images that move and evolve. Moving within layers of light, form and color, viewers experience the visual architecture of sound. Radical Chimeras extends the adventurous ethos of Big Ears to the visual arts by presenting a project in which sound becomes a structural and conceptual force. Gallery and festival attendees will encounter the work as a quiet zone of visual resonance.”

IS EVERYBODY READY? | ANDY SAFTEL
RED GALLERY
March 26 – April 26, 2026

Info via Big Ears

“Is Everybody Ready? was what my grandfather used to say after we were all loaded into his Buick Skylark before we took off down the road. This phrase can mean several different things in these times. It’s hard to know what to be ready for next. In this rapidly changing world it is a challenge to know what to prepare for as we head down the road. I think some color, a little humor, and some quiet contemplative time are in order.

I moved to Knoxville in the mid-nineteen eighties from San Francisco, after graduating from the San Francisco Art Institute. I immediately loved Tennessee and the grittiness of this town. Having a life in art felt like a real possibility. You could work a part-time job and be able to afford a house and a studio space. My first studio was on the second floor of an office building at Central and Broadway. Two years later I was able to build a large studio into a derelict warehouse space next to the railroad tracks on Jackson Avenue, just up the street from where we are now in the Red Gallery. After ten years in Knoxville I moved out into a rural landscape where I work in the studio every day. I consider myself very fortunate to have had a forty-year run making art in Tennessee.

So this exhibition is a homecoming of sorts. I’m so pleased to contribute to the Big Ears Festival. I love this festival and have not missed one yet. Welcome to my world.”

INSTRUMENT HEAD | MICHAEL WEINTROB
Art Truck
Open all weekend long

Info via  Big Ears

“Photographer Michael Weintrob returns to Big Ears — nearly a decade after launching the award-winning INSTRUMENTHEAD book here in 2017. The series presents musicians obscured by the instruments that define their sound, portraits suspended between identity and anonymity. A pandemic-era follow-up, INSTRUMENTHEAD: Revealed, reunites the same musicians, this time unmasked — forming a complete visual dialogue between the surreal portrait and its real counterpart. Both volumes are award-winning titles from the Independent Publisher Book Awards.

Stop by the INSTRUMENTHEAD Art Truck located outside of Mill & Mine to experience the work in a curated setting and order limited edition prints and box sets!”

time.place | Curated by ASHLEY LAYENDECKER
February 6 – March 29, 2026
The Emporium Center
Info via Knoxville Arts & Culture Alliance

“time. place. examines how geographic and temporal contexts shape artistic practice, how creative relationships influence the ways we work, and how shared consciousness emerges within artistic communities. The exhibition considers how artists are formed not only by where and when they work, but by the people who surround, challenge, and support them.

time. place. features artists who are all Tennessee-based, Tennessee-born, or deeply influenced by this region with strong ties to Knoxville and Nashville. Curated by Ashley Layendecker, each featured artist has had a personal impact on her journey as an artist and curator working within these communities. The proverb “iron sharpens iron” serves as a guiding framework for this exhibition: when two pieces of iron are rubbed together, both are refined and sharpened, and the saying speaks to mutually beneficial relationships grounded in accountability, encouragement, and constructive feedback.

Featured artists will respond to a prompt addressing the significance of time and place within their practice as well as the work presented. These reflections will be shared throughout the exhibition’s run and discussed further during an artist panel on the closing weekend during Big Ears Festival (date and time forthcoming).

Artists exhibited include: Asafe Pereira, Benjy Russell, Brandon Donahue-Shipp, Brianna Bass, Daniel Bruce Hughes, Eric Cagley, Josh Bienko, Joshua Shorey, Katarina Riesing, Kayla Rumpp, Lynne Marinelli Ghenov, Megan White, Nathan Sulfaro, Rubens Ghenov, and Thomas Wharton”