Questionables: Ceramics and Sculpture Opens at Averitt Center in Nov.

October 18, 2016

The Georgia Southern University Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art and The Averitt Center for the Arts will present MacKenzie Willard’s solo exhibition Questionables: Ceramics & Sculpture at the Averitt Center’s Legends Gallery Nov. 4 – 26. A reception for the show will be held during First Friday from 5 -7 p.m. on Nov. 4.

“Willard is among the most exciting emerging artists we have here at Georgia Southern. Her work is smart and engages with all kinds of interesting problems and ideas in the art world,” said Georgia Southern Gallery Director Jason Hoelscher. “In addition to that, her art is often just plain strange to look at, which I say a compliment–she has a real knack for offering the viewer just enough information to resolve into something that’s almost understandable, but not quite enough that you can ever fully figure out what you’re supposed to take away from the experience. That kind of targeted ambiguity is the hallmark of a true artist, in my opinion, and is the kind of thing that keeps people coming back to look again.”

Willard, who took home first-place honors in the BFSDoArt’s Undergraduate Juried Exhibition in the spring, uses personal experiences and hybrid self-portraits to express her views on topics that influence her daily decision-making and the exceptions she makes for the normal rules of society.

“In our day-to-day, we make a lot of choices about things that could be questionable,” Willard said. “This work points to those choices. This work asks things like ‘Do animals have feelings? Is killing them OK? Do you have enough adventures? Does your job make you miserable? Do practical objects have to be practical?”