A number of group shows this month include artists whose work hasn’t been seen in Atlanta for a while, or has been seen continuously but rarely. The shows raise a number of questions.
The most sprawling and impossible to categorize is Professors of Art: Georgia, at eyedrum. The 31 artists here were chosen by recently retired University of North Georgia professor Michael Marling de Cuellar from submissions to a juried exhibition; they teach in art departments at institutions from Valdosta and Savannah to Oconee and Dahlonega, with Macon and Barnesville only some of the intermediate locations. On closing day, August 20, the gallery will announce the artist who will be awarded a solo show in 2023.
There are only a few metro Atlanta faculty here, and this is a good thing — the show thus provides an introduction to a wide variety of Georgia artists, working in media from painting and printmaking to sculpture and installation, with a couple of incursions into fiber arts and installation. Not only does this provide visibility for artists in need of it, it provides an important requirement for academicians expected to show evidence of exhibitions outside their college or university.
The problem is that the show itself provides zero context beyond the institutional affiliation of the artists. I found it instructive to visit the websites of all of these artists, but viewers can scarcely be asked to engage in this activity. (The artists are listed on eyedrum’s website.) Furthermore, the individual works here don’t really provide enough to do more than provoke curiosity. But that in itself is a worthy goal.
Spruill Gallery’s Progression, through September 3, presents recent work by half a dozen artists who were introduced to metro Atlanta audiences 10 or 12 years ago in the gallery’s Emerging Artists exhibitions. Some have had solo shows in Atlanta galleries since then; all but one are currently involved in art education or arts administration in other cities, and four of them, Ashley L. Schick, Meg Aubrey, Kyungmin Park and Erin McIntosh, are represented by, or have works in the inventories of, galleries in Atlanta and across America and the world. The other two, Susan Ryles and J. Glenn Taylor, are being re-introduced to local audiences with this exhibition.
Aubrey’s new work is still resonant with the same themes of suburban isolation and alienation that were on display at her Whitespace exhibition of 2012, possibly rendered more ironically nuanced by the years of social distancing.
McIntosh, a professor at University of North Georgia, continues to create in a variety of styles, including biomorphic paintings related to her earlier work. Park’s ceramics at Spruill are representative of the extraordinary expanse of her vision, which ranges from witty figuration to plaques and functional objects. Schick, who has exhibited in a variety of media at Kai Lin Gallery (which has no remaining inventory of her work), is now engaged in a style of abstracted collage of hand-cut paper inspired by the environment she encounters on her neighborhood walks.
After a hiatus imposed by her professional roles, Ryles has returned to creating incisively feminist sculptures, while Taylor’s striking geometric abstractions are now created “with no thoughts of there ever being an audience again . . . for the sake of ritual, sanity and prayer.”
It would be instructive to contemplate the careers of all six artists in greater detail, and the Spruill exhibition offers ample opportunity to do this. The works on display are worth seeking out for their own sake.
The same goes for the artists in curator and artist Clare Butler’s textiles show The Material Is the Message, at 378 Gallery through August 27. Although some of the 11 artists are primarily known for their textile-based work, others are better known for other media.
Adeline Barnett’s cuddly soft-sculpture creatures are her introduction to audiences beyond the SCAD graduation show presented at the WADDI a few months back.
Jessica Caldas is well known to Atlantans from group exhibitions at the High Museum of Art and MOCA GA, but her commentary on the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, a soft-sculpture abstraction modeled after Jacques-Louis David’s painting The Death of Marat, is unlike what many Atlanta viewers might have expected.
Terry Coffey’s wittily cosmic wall hangings are sharply contrasted with her utterly topical quilted-fabric models of AR-15s, and rosaries memorializing the victims of recent mass shootings; Debra Steinmann’s elegant wall hanging commenting on the events of January 6, 2021, Elinor Saragoussi’s cartoon-like wall hangings, and Beth Ensign’s beautifully poetic artist’s books are only a few of the other objects making this a show well worth visiting.
A show I haven’t been able to see, Reimagine Peace: The Art of Resistance, at the ArtsXchange’s Jack Sinclair Gallery through September 8, includes some once-familiar artists who have been largely absent from the gallery scene lately, such as Jennifer Cawley, whose career is only one of many deserving fresh consideration. Other artists in the exhibition have had recent solo shows, but a detailed analysis of yet another extended list — 38 artists, if I’ve counted correctly — would require more space and research time than this Notebook can comfortably accommodate.
Sandie Teepen, whose fabric hanging in that show won recognition from the juror, is also featured in a solo exhibition, Quilted Collages, at Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance through August 31. It should give a good overview of an artist in traditional media whose work has been gaining increasing visibility in recent months.
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Dr. Jerry Cullum’s reviews and essays have appeared in Art Papers magazine, Raw Vision, Art in America, ARTnews, International Journal of African-American Art and many other popular and scholarly journals. In 2020 he was awarded the Rabkin Prize for his outstanding contribution to arts journalism.
