James Emmette Neel
Associate Professor of Art
Director, The Durbin Gallery
2010 Winner of the SECAC Visual Arts Grant/SECAC Artist’s Fellowship, Jim Neel’s sculpture, drawings and photography have appeared in regional and national exhibitions that include Winston-Salem’s Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center, the Montgomery Museum of Art, and the Alexandria Museum of Art as well as academic galleries at Memphis State University, Mississippi State University, the University of Montevallo and the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Working as a freelance photojournalist covering the wars in Central America and life and death among the Serpent Handling Holiness of Appalachia, his work has appeared nationally and internationally in over thirty newspapers, magazines and hard cover publications that include the Los Angeles Times Magazine, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the Birmingham News and Post Herald, Oxford American magazine, Esquire magazine and Dennis Covington’s Salvation on Sandmountain, L’Eglise aux Serpents, and Redneck Riviera.
Educational Background:
B.F.A., Birmingham-Southern College, 1971
M.F.A., The University of Alabama, 1973
Areas of Academic Interest:
- Sculpture
- Drawing
- Photo-Journalism
- Latin-America
Jim Neel 