The weather outside may be dreary and gray this winter, but several Athens area galleries are kicking off 2024 by opening exhibitions full of vivid and exciting artwork. With several other shows on the horizon, the galleries below are reopening this week with new work for the new year.
ATHICA: The Athens Institute for Contemporary Art is getting back into the swing of things with “Onodera & Pearse: Contrasts and Correlations,” an exhibition that pairs together work by Wisconsin-based artist Masako Onodera and Athens’ own Mary Hallam Pearse. Both associate professors in the fields of jewelry and metalwork at the University of Wisconsin-Stout and University of Georgia, respectively, the two artists share a background in craft and an affinity for embracing sculptural applications of metal, paper, gravity and motion.
Wishing to bring Pearse’s astounding sculpture “Full Bloom” to ATHICA, curator and gallery director Lauren Fancher felt inspired to present the artists alongside each other after seeing Onodera’s work at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Onodera’s “Vestiges and Phantoms” series was influenced by antique, silver-plated housewares that, while once a symbol of a woman’s social status and occasionally preserved as heirlooms of beloved ancestors, are often found abandoned in antique shops. “Full Bloom” is an intricate, jaw-dropping sculpture covered in lead flower blossoms. The sculpture contemplates themes of mortality and over-consumption by juxtaposing the dark and troubling history of lead with the symbolic nature of flowers as tokens of devotion, celebration, mourning and remembrance.
An opening reception will be held Jan. 13 from 6–8 p.m., and an artists talk will follow on Jan. 14 at 4 p.m. The Lamar Dodd School of Art will host a visiting artist lecture with Onodera on Jan. 16 at 5:30 p.m. “Onodera & Pearse” will remain on view through Feb. 11.
ATHICA@CINÉ GALLERY: Presented by ATHICA in Ciné’s entrance gallery space, “Skitterings: New Works by Don Chambers” shares works on paper created through intuitive mark-making and an openness to chance. Chambers bounces between drawing, collage, sculpture and painting techniques within his creative practice, often incorporating colored pencil, graphite, watercolor, acrylic and rust.
“These works maintain a reliance on coincidence and chance that is a struggle to hold on to,” says Chambers in his exhibition statement. “I want the marks to hold all the hesitation, trepidation and doubt I feel making them. If this is a magic trick—I want the strings to show.”
Chambers, whom many may recognize as a talented songwriter who has released 10 albums, received an MFA in painting and printmaking from UGA’s Lamar Dodd School of Art. His exhibition, which opened with a reception on Jan. 4, will remain on view until Feb. 25.
FOYER: The new gallery space Foyer will host a solo exhibition of paintings by Amelia Briggs, a multidisciplinary artist who works in fiber, installation and painting. While previously living in Nashville, TN, Briggs primarily created large, unusual soft sculptures that resembled candy-colored entrails. After moving to Brooklyn, NY and downsizing her studio space, she created a series of smaller scale oil paintings that echo the bodily forms that reoccur throughout her sculptural works. Ribbon-like tentacles stretch and unfurl within each scene, occasionally sprouting into surreal botanicals or twisting themselves into knots.
Amelia says, “My work illustrates the interior landscape and the unknowable complexity that resides there. Driven by a need to seek resolution through expression after an emotional trauma, I translate feelings into sinuous forms that consider our body’s natural relationship to biology and gesture. Influenced by the psychology of body language and the study of natural systems, these forms surround, hoist, touch, caress and prop, frozen in a communion of transformation. Their subtle shifts in color demonstrate the longing for expansion while the suggestion of a border is repeated, limiting what is possible while protecting what exists.”
Located at 135 Park Ave. in the pink Victorian home of curator, artist and educator Jaime Bull, Foyer debuted in August with a solo exhibition of paintings by Chrissy Reed. Bull intends to host seasonal, solo exhibitions featuring artists working in all mediums from Athens and beyond. An opening reception for Briggs’ paintings will be held Jan. 12 from 5–7 p.m., and the exhibition can be viewed by appointment through Mar. 16.
OCAF: The Oconee Cultural Arts Foundation will celebrate the release of author Gail Langer Karwoski’s new lighthearted whodunit book, Skeleton in the Art Closet, the second publication in her Watercolor Mystery series that launched last year with A Brush with Murder. Karwoski’s characters are loosely inspired by the painters of her studio group, the Wonders of Watercolor, who have been meeting weekly for several years at OCAF to paint together. An accompanying exhibition, “Novel Art Chapter Two,” celebrates the book’s release while spotlighting WOW artists including Pat Adams, Leslie Guo, Charlotte Haile, Lori Hammer, Gail Karwoski, Kim Kennedy, William Lum, Ann Nace, Zee Ngao, Diane Powelson, Bonnie Roberts, Janet Rodekohr and Barb Schell.
The book release and opening reception will be held Jan. 12 from 5:30–8 p.m., and the exhibition will remain on view through Feb. 10. Proceeds from book sales will help support OCAF.
TIF SIGFRIDS: Brooklyn-based artist Margaux Ogden’s solo exhibition, “Tidal Locking,” includes recent works among selections from an ongoing series of abstract paintings that iterate upon each other. These paintings’ roots trace back to a floor mosaic at the ancient Baths of Caracalla in Rome that caught Ogden’s eye during a residency as the Abbey Fellow at the British School in 2021. The geometric patterns of the ruins have inspired funky paintings of subtly repeating forms in a saturated, tropical color palette. Slight variations among these abstracted patterns suggest referential relationships and an evolution between paintings.
An opening reception will be held Jan. 13 from 5–7 p.m., and the exhibition will remain on view through Feb. 24. The gallery, located at 393 N. Finley St., is open Fridays from 12–5 p.m. and by appointment.
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