It’s an exciting time for the art scene in Athens as galleries and venues are getting back into the swing of things for 2023. Whether you’re a seasoned patron of art in Athens or brand new to the scene, the wealth of visual art in Athens can be overwhelming. Third Thursday, a monthly evening of art at visual art venues around town, aims to make that task less daunting. From 6 to 9 p.m. every third Thursday of the month, venues stay open a little later to showcase visual art exhibitions. Mark your calendar for the first series event of the new year on January 19. It’s a great opportunity to visit a venue you’ve never visited before, see new exhibitions around town and enjoy art from local artists and beyond. View the full schedule of events and participating venues this month at 3Thurs.org. Here’s a sampling of what to see at this month’s event:
ATHICA: The Athens Institute for Contemporary Art will showcase a new installment of its “Solo Duo Trio” series. The latest in the series will feature works by artists Lauren Bradshaw, Daniel Brickman and Jeanne Ciravolo. The exhibitions’ works are united by “visceral and unusual use of fiber and other materials, referencing the body, the tactile, and the experiential,” notes the ATHICA event page.
“These artists come from the American North, South, and West, each bringing a unique but complementary sensibility to their work, inhabiting the gallery like creatures we know but haven’t met before,” said exhibition curator Jon Vogt. “These beautiful, sculptural, and painterly works have fiber as one common thread (pun intended), uniting in their mutual exploration of found materials and biomorphic imagery.”
Learn more about the artists at: https://athica.org/updates/bradshaw_brickman_ciravolo/. ATHICA is in the Leathers’ Building on Pulaski Street.
ATHICA@CINÉ: ATHICA’s satellite space at Ciné will showcase an exhibition of new works by Atlanta-based artist Alice Stone-Collins. Her “hand-painted collaged pieces ask questions of tradition and to the ties that bind” and “highlight the tensions between the mundane, the everyday, and the apparent dead.”
The gallery’s regular Experimental Music Night will also be held on Third Thursday this month and will feature Gull, a multi-instrumentalist “one-man band” musician who has toured in support of White Rabbits, RNDM and Saxsquatch and shared the bar arena with the likes of Silver Apples, Girl Talk, Deerhoof and many more. According to HuffPost writer Adrian Grenier, Gull makes music that is remarkable for a solo artist. “If you close your eyes you will hear the sounds of a three piece band complete with rhythmic guitar picking, a steady drum beat and the manic vocals of a passionate man,” wrote Grenier. “However, this ominous harmony is conjured by a lone musician, coordinating two instruments simultaneously, while modulating his own voice through a microphone-equipped mask.”
The Athenaeum: Located at 287 W. Broad Street, this contemporary art venue will showcase a new exhibition with works by American artist Kara Walker that “deal directly in the contradictions of misremembered histories, most pointedly in her career-long representation of the horrors beneath the antebellum South’s genteel facades. In the drawings presented in the gallery, Walker mingles washes of watercolor, gouache, ink and graphite to create a series that calls forth the past at once mythological and real, ancient and contemporary.”
The venue, which is a non-collecting art gallery affiliated with UGA and the Lamar Dodd School of Art, describes itself as an experimental education resource for students at UGA and the community at-large. It comprises more than 5,000 square feet and houses an art gallery, a space for workshops, lectures, classes and a reading room to peruse texts and listen to records that connect with the exhibitions in the gallery. Visit: https://athenaeum.uga.edu/
Classic Galleries at the Classic Center: The Classic Center’s Classic Gallery I will host “Spotlight: Paintings by Amy Watts.” The exhibition features works of “cowgirls, farmers, miners, indigenous peoples, and angels on big, bold, colorful canvases that bring to mind stained glass windows and Work Place Administration murals.” Gallery II will host works by Alivia Patton, Allison McPheeter and Caitlin Gal that are inspired by the childhood toy Lite-Brite.
“Remember piercing through the board with little, colorful, plastic pegs to create glowing compositions? Artists Alivia Patton, Allison McPheeter and Caitlin Gal all utilize circles in their artwork to create inspiring pieces” the Classic Center gallery website states. “Caitlin Gal’s paintings joyfully point to plant life and biology using a bright color palette and Matisse-inspired shapes. Allison McPheeters uses drawing as a means to relax and her intricate repeated mark reads as a sort of meditation. Alivia Patton shows the transformation of form in her works that resemble a target, a planet or an eyeball.”
Georgia Museum of Art: If art and zen are a part of your 2023 New Year’s resolutions, the Georgia Museum of Art may be the place to explore. Yoga in the Galleries will take place starting at 6 p.m. Tickets are available first-come, first-serve starting at 5:15 p.m. The museum also has a variety of exhibitions on view, including “Decade of Tradition: Highlights from the Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Collection,” “Kristin Leachman: Longleaf Lines” and “In Dialogue: Henry Ossawa Tanner, Mentor and Muse.”
Lyndon House Arts Center: The Lyndon House Arts Center will host an artist talk at 6 p.m. by J. Taran Diamond, the artist behind the current exhibition “The Same, Yet Separate.” Diamond is a metalsmith and interdisciplinary craft artist who creates intricate and ornate objects inspired by historic artifacts that “investigate anti-blackness within the material culture of the American south.” Diamond is also “an advocate for Black people in academia, and works to dismantle the systemic barriers that make higher education inaccessible to Black people.”
Two other exhibitions, “Bess Carter: Arts Center Choice Award Exhibition” and “A Pattern of Movements: Works by Kate Burke, Rebecca Kreisler & Sylvia Schaefer,” are also on view. For more details, check out accgov.com/lyndonhouse. The Lyndon House Arts Center is located at 211 Hoyt Street.
Tiny ATH Gallery: Tiny ATH Gallery, located down Pulaski Street on Cleveland Avenue, will host a pop-up, salon-style show called “Clean Your Closet” that will feature pieces by local artists that have been taking up space in their studio or workspace for longer than they intended. Works at the exhibition will be priced at $200 or below and can be taken home from the gallery at the time of purchase. The 2nd annual event for the gallery will feature work by Jamie Calkin, Melody Croft, See Dan Paint, Alexis Spina, Sarah Flinn, Camille Hayes, James Benyshek, Gary Autry, Mike Groves, Keith P. Rein, the Pink Flamingo, Gunnar Tarsa, Vera Miller, Marisa Leilani Mustard, Taylor Solomon, Leah Sayles and more.
Authored by:
Jessica Luton
