Gallery Programming
Student juried exhibitions on view Feb. 28 to March 4 at Center for Art & Theatre
Juried 2022 and Form & Content are annual juried exhibitions of student work. The exhibitions will be on view from Feb. 28 to March 4 at the Center for Art & Theatre’s Contemporary and University Galleries.
Juried 2022 features work created by Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art undergraduate students in a variety of media including drawing, painting, fibers, jewelry, multimedia, mixed media, photography, printmaking, sculpture, and ceramics.
The Form & Content exhibition features work created in art foundation courses including drawing, two-dimensional design, three-dimensional design, and digital foundations.
Both exhibitions were juried by Savannah-based artist Will Penny. Penny received a diploma in Fine Art from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario, and a BFA and MFA in Painting from The Savannah College of Art and Design. Penny’s artworks dissolve traditional boundaries of art and design. His art explores tensions between the tangible space a painting inhabits, the impact of digital technology on fabricated forms and illusionistic environments.
Winners will be awarded during the reception on Friday, March 4. Light refreshments will be served.
‘2016 Faculty Exhibition’ Opens at Center for Art & Theatre
STATESBORO, Ga. – The Georgia Southern University Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art presents the “2016 Faculty Exhibition” from Aug. 15 – Sept. 14 in the Contemporary and University Galleries at the Center for Art and Theatre.
An Opening Reception and Artist Talk will be Thursday, Aug. 18. The Artist Talk begins at 5 p.m. in the Visual Art Building, room 2071, and the reception will follow from 6-7:30 p.m. at the Center for Art and Theatre.
The exhibition showcases a range of interdisciplinary works of art, design and research from the exemplary faculty of the Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art. It features work from Sarah Bielski, Kelly Boehmer, Jessica Burke, Robert Farber, Scott Foxx, Elsie Hill, Jessica Hines, Jason Hoelscher, Derek Larson, Christina Lemon, Julie McGuire, Marc Moulton, Onyile Onyile, Ed Rushton, and Jeff Schmuki.
“The faculty here at Georgia Southern comes from a range of backgrounds from across the U.S. and around the world, and this diversity shows in their art and design work,” said Gallery Director Jason Hoelscher. “This exhibition, part of our biennial series of faculty shows, offers an excellent look at state-of-the-art approaches to creative research, from painting, drawing and digital design to multimedia forms difficult to classify.”
All events are free and open to the public.
NOTE: This exhibition was originally set to close on Sept. 16 but will instead close on Sept. 14 to accommodate installation for the next exhibition. We apologize for any inconvenience.
‘B.F.A Senior Exhibition’ opens at Center for Art & Theatre
STATESBORO, Ga. – The Georgia Southern University Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art presents the “B.F.A. Senior Exhibition” May 2 – 6 in the University and Contemporary Galleries at the Center for Art and Theatre. The reception is May 6 from 5 – 7 p.m. Light refreshments will be served, and the public is invited to attend.
“One of the big ideas in the art world lately is that we’re in what is called the post-medium condition—meaning that previous notions about the importance of clearly-defined boundaries between art forms no longer hold. That is definitely the case with this exhibition, a potent mix comprising everything from colored pencils, ceramics and paint, to sound, digital video and installation,” said Gallery Director Jason Hoelscher. “In many ways this exhibition officially marks a shift from art student to emerging artist, and everyone involved has really stepped up to create thought-provoking and engaging works of art.”
This exhibition features work from senior Bachelor of Fine Art, 2D and 3D Studio Art majors enrolled in the BFA Portfolio course taught by Hoelscher. Students featured are Austin Cates, Luke Criddle, James Dawson, Stuart Goodall, Justin Hinckley, Erika Jordan, Zak Kelley, Allison Mueller, Katie Randall, Jessica Raymond, Victoria Slagle, Jordan Surell, Brandon Warnock, and Courtney West.
The College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS) is the largest of the eight colleges that make up Georgia Southern University, and it plays a central role in every student’s core of knowledge. CLASS, also described as the University’s College of the Creative Mind, prepares students to achieve academic excellence, develop their analytical skills, enhance their creativity and embrace their responsibilities as citizens of their communities, their nations and the world. CLASS offers more than 20 undergraduate degrees and several interdisciplinary minors from its 11 departments and five academic centers. CLASS offers eight master’s degrees, two graduate certificates and one doctoral degree. For more information, visit cah.georgiasouthern.edu.
Georgia Southern University, a public Carnegie Doctoral/Research University founded in 1906, offers more than 125 degree programs serving more than 20,500 students. Through eight colleges, the University offers bachelors, masters and doctoral degree programs built on more than a century of academic achievement. Georgia Southern is recognized for its student-centered and hands-on approach to education. GeorgiaSouthern.edu.
Allison Tierney’s ‘The Things We Keep’ opens in Contemporary Gallery
Georgia Southern University’s Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art presents Allison Tierney’s The Things We Keep, from Feb. 23 to March 25 on-campus in the Contemporary Gallery of the Center for Art & Theatre. The exhibition includes an artist talk Feb. 23 at 5 p.m. in Visual Arts Building, room 2071 with a reception to follow at the Center for Art & Theatre. The events are free, and the public is welcome.
Tierney’s paintings employ found materials and non-traditional applications of paint to question structure, material integrity, consumerism, D-I-Y, and the throwaway culture. The works speak to content of domesticity, waste, time, landscape, and femininity.
“Since the majority of my materials are found, they come with their own histories, forms, and physical qualities. I exploit this material baggage to see how far painting can be pushed,” Tierney writes.
Tierney’s honest use of materials and abstracted brushwork allow the objects used in her work to exist where they are—self-referential, notating their original purpose. The work explores the spatial capacities of painting beginning with the surface. Items embedded within the canvas or sitting flush to the surface become part of the narrative. The work also examines space through what is happening around the canvas or off the wall. This includes indirect effects of the work such as shadows and lighting, but also can involve an extension of the picture plane or free-standing sculptures.
As perspective shifts begin to occur, the viewer has an opportunity to interact with the work in a variety of ways and can interpret their connections with the materials, creating limitless personal narratives.
“Tierney’s work is impressive in and of itself, but becomes even more so once you realize just how many of the art world’s big issues she’s addressing all at once. Among others, these include abstract painting’s century-long exploration of geometry; the role of the art object and its co-extensive existence in and among the embodied space of the viewer; and even questions of how to embed an object’s history and aura into the creation of an artwork,” notes Gallery Director Jason Hoelscher. “These are big questions one at a time, so Tierney’s attempt to tackle them simultaneously is pretty impressive. Add the fact that the work is exciting to look at, with or without pondering these big questions, and the result is a must-see exhibition.”
Tierney’s project is made possible by an Ella Fountain Pratt Emerging Artists Grant from the Durham Arts Council with support from the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources.
Tierney is an artist living and working in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She received her B.F.A. from Winthrop University and her M.F.A. from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill where she won the Top Prize for Outstanding M.F.A. work.
Exhibition Highlights African-American Artists from the South
Georgia Southern University’s Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art presents Celebrating African-American Artists Feb.1 to July 29 on-campus in the Southern Folk Art Gallery of the Center for Art and Theatre. The exhibition includes a reception Feb. 11 at 6 p.m. at the Center for Art and Theatre. The events are free and the public is welcome.
This exhibition features work created by renowned African-American artists from the South. It was curated by Annamarie Kistler, a graduate assistant at the BFSDoArt, from the Smith Callaway Banks Southern Folk Art Collection at Georgia Southern University.
Kistler, who is pursuing her masters in history with a certificate in public history, currently is working as the collections manager, overseeing all of the pieces in the permanent collections at Georgia Southern.
“While cataloging the pieces we have in the Folk Art Collection, I realized we have a lot of pieces painted of childhood memories by African American Artists that have not been exhibited in a long time,” Kistler said. “I wanted to do this exhibition to show off these beautiful pieces by these very talented artists.”
This exhibition showcases the personal and intimate narratives of the artists’ most cherished memories, which is what folk art is all about. Its subject matter springs from community and cultural traditions, expressing an identity by conveying shared values and aesthetics.
“Each of these pieces carry something special,” she said. “What is interesting is for some pieces the artist purposefully left out the detail on the faces so the viewer could further connect with the piece by imposing their own memories on the faces in the artwork.”
“The Smith Callaway Banks Southern Folk Art Collection is a treasure trove of styles, ideas, and materials,” said Center for Art & Theatre Gallery Director Jason Hoelscher. “In curating this show Annamarie has shown a strong curatorial flair for coming up with an exhibition that covers a lot of territory in terms of medium and content, while maintaining a lot of heart in the ideas and scenes put together by the artists. The show is eclectic without being scattered, and definitely worth checking out.”
Work by the artists have been displayed all around the country from the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C., to major commissions with companies like Coca-Cola and newspapers such as the New York Times.
The College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS) is the largest of the eight colleges that make up Georgia Southern University, and it plays a central role in every student’s core of knowledge. CLASS, also described as the University’s College of the Creative Mind, prepares students to achieve academic excellence, develop their analytical skills, enhance their creativity and embrace their responsibilities as citizens of their communities, their nations and the world. CLASS offers more than 20 undergraduate degrees and several interdisciplinary minors from its 11 departments and five academic centers. CLASS offers eight master’s degrees, two graduate certificates and one doctoral degree. For more information, visit cah.georgiasouthern.edu.
Georgia Southern University, a public Carnegie Doctoral/Research University founded in 1906, offers more than 125 degree programs serving more than 20,500 students. Through eight colleges, the University offers bachelors, masters and doctoral degree programs built on more than a century of academic achievement. Georgia Southern is recognized for its student-centered and hands-on approach to education. GeorgiaSouthern.edu.