The Lyndon House Arts Center (LHAC) hosted its first art exhibition, “The Joy of Art,” in August 1974 in the historic Ware-Lyndon House. Over a short two-week period, the organizers transformed the first floor of what was then being used as the recreational department into a white-walled gallery. At this time, the city was struggling to promote the visual arts, and in 1978 the Red and Black opined that Athens was “sadly lacking… an arts community.”
The paper did comment on a relationship that boded well for the future, though, remarking that UGA’s art department worked well with the LHAC because it was run by former art students. Those students were Nancy and Ronnie Lukasiewicz, who moved to Athens in 1973 to pursue their MFA degrees at UGA. Ronnie is credited with starting the LHAC, and Nancy served as its director from 1977–1999, then as its curator of exhibitions until 2016. The juried exhibitions have been held annually (except in 1997 and 1999 because of construction—the 1998 show was in the lobby of the Morton Theatre), with the 25th in 2000 being the first presented in the current modern expansion.
On Mar. 13, the LHAC opened its 50th Juried Exhibition with a gold-themed party, marking five decades of supporting art and artists in the Athens area, with submissions welcomed from Athens-Clarke and 14 other surrounding counties. The show reflects a thriving, well-established arts community, and Andrea Wellnitz, the LHAC facility and program supervisor, notes, “I am grateful to have the opportunity to spend my working days with the artwork in the Lyndon House Arts Center.”
Throughout its history, the LHAC has invited jurors from outside of Athens—except for the first year, when recently arrived art professor Glen Kaufman served as juror—to select the works to include in the annual exhibition. This brings fresh eyes to our local scene and raises the event’s profile as professionals across the county become involved. This year, the LHAC asked Michael Rooks, the Wieland family senior curator of modern and contemporary art at the High Museum in Atlanta, to curate the show. Rooks reviewed 835 works of art submitted by 307 Athens-area artists, and selected 151 works by 103 artists for inclusion. At the opening, he marveled at the “palpable sense of place” that he encountered in the submissions.
This perennially eclectic exhibition features several familiar and favorite names (Carol John, Carl Martin and Tad Gloeckler, for example) along with many newcomers. The selections are largely two-dimensional, with just a handful of sculptures and no jewelry. The overall tone of the show is peaceful, with plenty of depictions of the outdoors and domestic scenes (including an ink on paper image of a pleasing bookshelf full of odds and ends by Josh McDonald and Susie Burch’s watercolor of a kitchen sink in the morning sunshine). Among the few exceptions to this general quietude are Christopher Markiewicz’s comic-book-style creations and Richard Pruett’s large painting collages, one of which has the words, “Some paintings can’t be won” spray painted across it. There are several diminutive works that invite meditative moments, like Johntimothy Pizzuto’s mixed media and intaglio prints on panels, Hyekyung Han’s charming creations, and Ray Lee’s delicate colored pencil lines.
The group of works that visitors first see upon entering the light-filled atrium includes a quilted textile in rectangles of patterned forest colors by Sue Lawrence, with botanical subjects on either side, highlighting the nature theme. Upstairs, Laura Floyd explains her scene from Mars, stating, “Today I feel fortunate to be able to retreat into the meditative act of painting a natural scene. The larger and more immersive the piece is, the better it drowns out the stress of the world.” And Paul C. Blake writes of his colorful Nature #17, “I have chosen to attend to the timeless evolution of nature in contemporary times. I enter the wilderness without occupation, imposition, expectation or reservation.”
Figurative works range from Frances Thrasher’s big-eyed characters to the very Athens photograph of a drummer at Nowhere Bar during AthFest by Erin Hendrick. In the statement accompanying her surrealist pastel “It Searches for Its Life’s Lost Child,” featured on the cover of this Flagpole issue, Emma Callicutt explains, “I am a young person acquainted with sentiments of hopelessness and discouragement about my future. For me, the creation of art functions as a response to these circumstances… I have come to see the creation of art, in and of itself, as a protest against the temptation to relinquish hope.” Ven Zhu’s moving “Eye of the Storm” lithograph also reflects a deeply personal approach: “Through my art, I strive to create a bridge between my culture and my evolving sense of self, becoming a product of my environment in the liminal space between migrating generations.”
A few other standouts include Madeleine Underwood’s “Thank You, Call Again,” with its repeated pattern of vintage printed receipts; a trio of trompe-l’oeil allegorical paintings by Scott Belville in one of the side galleries upstairs; Phoebe-Agnès Mills’s watery paintings; Hazel Halicki’s technically impressive 14-layer screen print “to pick a self and wear it” and Nancy Lambert’s pulsing arches of color in the fiber work “Surfs Up.”
The exhibition will be on view through May 10, and the Lyndon House Arts Center will host artist talks at 5:30 p.m. in the galleries on Thursday evenings on Apr. 10, 17 and 24 and May 1.
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