Modern Art
by Rebecca Bounds-Brown

January 2 , 2023
to February 28, 2023

Artist Statement:

An Atlanta native, Rebecca Bounds-Brown graduated from Georgia State University with both a B.A. in fine arts and a M.A.Ed. degree. In 2006 she earned a 10-year National Teaching Certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. National Board certified teachers are highly accomplished educators who meet high and rigorous standards through intensive study, expert evaluation, self-assessment and peer review. Brown is a practicing photographer and painter whose work has been shown at the Marietta Cobb Museum of Art, NAEA National Headquarters, the Mable House, and local galleries and shows. She believes that every student has some natural artistic ability which can be developed and refined.

Paintings - Old Crack Story
by Chinemerem Omeh

March 1, 2023
to April 30, 2023

Biography:

Omeh Chinemerem is a Nigerian artist, born in Enugu, Nigeria. He holds a BA in fine and applied arts from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka where he majored as a painter. Currently based in Atlanta, Georgia, US.

Omeh started drawing and painting at the age of five. Unable to fully read and write, drawing naturally became a means to express himself. He found a voice and identity in drawing and painting.

His yearning for change amidst harsh realities makes expressing pain, peace, depression, hope, deception, and love inevitable in his work. His artistic dispositions were met with dissuasion from peers, teachers, and his parent because to become an artist was an impossible way to earn a decent living. That dissuasion only made his love of art stronger and has informed it.

Omeh has since, been in numerous group shows in Nigeria. In 2016, his work "Nma Ndu" won, best painting in a group exhibition, themed "Dream's alive" Enugu state in Nigeria.

In 2019, he participated in a group show in New York represented by Agora Gallery, where he introduced his body of work "Crack story" to the world. With the show, "Crack story" the artist informed us of his basic philosophy. Inspired by the crack texture of the earth during the harmattan season in his hometown, he used them through the body of work(crack story) as metaphors speaking to a desire for restoration and hope for better days. His technique involved a rough and heavy application of dead caked color mixed with linseed oil. The cracks, however, have become an identity in his works.

Exhibitions

• Solo exhibition "Old Crack Story" Smyrna public Library 2023
• ArtFields 2023 South Carolina
• N'Namdi contemporary Fine Art group show Miami, FL 2023
• Collectors and Cocktail ACA Galleries New York 2023
• Mason Fine art group show, Miami Circle, Atlanta Georgia 2023
• "Reflection in time" collaborative show Carther Fine Arts New Jersey 2022
• "Senses", a collaborative group show Peters St. Atlanta Georgia 2022.
• "Reflection in Time" Carther Fine arts, a collaborative show New Jersey 2022.
• Black Art in America head quarter opening exhibition Atlanta Georgia 2022.
• ''All the world's stage'' International juried exhibition Cape Cod Museum of Art Massachusetts 2022.
• 15th Figurative show Hillard gallery Kansas city Missouri 2022.
• ''Surface'' Highlighting the use of textures held D'Art Center Norfolk Virginia 2022.
• "Red dot Miami" represented by Agora gallery Mana Wynwood Miami FL 2021
• Summer showcase Agora gallery 2019

https://www.chinemeremomeh.com/

Pastels
by Paula Landry

May 1, 2023 to June 39, 2023

Artist Statement:

Paula Landry is a pastel artist living and working in Smyrna, Georgia. After many years of teaching art in the Cobb County School District, she has spent her retirement years focusing on expanding and exploring her own artistic skills. With a BFA in Art Education from the University of Southern Mississippi and a Master’s from the University of Georgia, Paula has studied and has shown work everywhere from France to the small towns of the Southeast. Paula’s portraits and landscapes reflect the vibrant colors found in the Georgia landscape. She is often commissioned for her informal child portraits.

Thank you for taking the time to view my paintings. If you are interested in purchasing any of them, please e-mail me at landrymp@gmail.com.

Glimmer: A Journey Through Glass
by Julie Mazzoni and Margery Kellar

July 1, 2023 to August 31, 2023

Artist Statements:

Margery Kellar grew up in the Midwest, graduating from Ball State University with a BS in Art Education. She moved to Atlanta in 1979, employed by Fulton County DFACS in Adult Protective Services, retiring in 2011. She became interested in creating stained glass art when her church was demolished in 2006, seeing the colored windows in shards on the ground. Margery creates window art, cabinet windows, suncatchers, jewelry, lights and lanterns, plant sticks, and does custom work. She also repairs broken pieces. She participates in at least three shows per year: Stone Mountain Highland Games (October), Central Florida Scottish Highland Games (January), and Apple Annies Craft Fair (December). She is a teaching assistant at the Spruill Center for the Arts in Beginning and Intermediate Stained Glass. She is the current president of the Atlanta Glass Art Guild, which has given her a better understanding of the many ways glass is used in art.

Mosaicist Julie Mazzoni finds the splendor in everyday moments and captures it in mosaic. After living in six cities in twelve years while raising four children, a sense of place and home became driving themes in her work, expressed through subjects of nature and people. Julie teaches mosaic classes at The Art Place Mountain View and Spruill Center for the Arts. She has a YouTube channel showing her process from the studio. Julie creates three-dimensional hand-built substrates for her mosaics, but also explores in two dimensions. Her contemporary take on mosaics emphasizes the unique qualities of the medium – the reflectivity and refraction of light on the work, dimensional or sculptural possibilities, the texture of the tesserae, the nature of substrate and the andemento, or flow of the pieces.

Towering Views: Remembering the World Trade Center 20 Years After 9/11
by David Batley

September 7, 2023 to October 30, 2023

Artist Statement:

This gallery represents a portion of an exhibit I first put together to mark the 10th anniversary of the events that took place In New York on September 11, 2001. The photographs were exhibited to the public at a gallery in Marietta, Georgia, followed by another exhibit at a gallery in Kennesaw, Georgia. The exhibit was well-received by those who experienced it in person, and I was encouraged to try to share it with a larger audience. This is my effort to try and share these photos. For those who saw them in person during the two exhibits, much of the reaction was heart rendering, as so many remembered that day in their lives. The perennial question has been, "Do you remember what you were doing on that day?"

My story about 9/11 goes back a few weeks prior to that fateful day. I was in New York City attending a national arts conference and had an opportunity to join a guided tour of significant art locations in Lower Manhattan. The tour concluded at a reception in a studio space on the 92nd floor of the North Tower, World Trade Center.

The studio space was called "World Views," and occupied a corner of the 92nd floor, allowing views from two sides of the tower. Fifteen artists used this space as part of a residency program sponsored by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. The idea was that these artists might be inspired to create their art based on the "views" allowed at that height over the city.

I used this opportunity to take some shots out the windows using both Kodak Ektachrome and Kodak infrared film. I was able to capture some of the feeling of being at this great hight, looking outward and downward (and occasionally zooming the lens a little).

For the past ten years, I have wanted to do something with thiese images. My exhibit, coinciding with the 10th anniversary of 9/11, was this opportunity. My wife and I returned to New York City the third week of August of 2011, with the purpose in mind that I would get images of the progress of the memorial and rebuilding efforts at Ground Zero. This experience was truly moving for both of us.

The "Towering Views" I captured ten years earlier from the World Trade Center still make me pause. I hope in seeing these images, you too, will feel something and reflect on how of our lives have changed from that event ten years ago.

Smyrna World War II Veterans
A Veterans Day Tribute Exhibition
by Pat Burns
and Smyrna Historical and Genealogical Society

November 1, 2023 to December 31, 2023

Exhibit Description:

The Art & Display Galleries feature wartime photographs of World War II veterans from the Smyrna area. They were collected by local historian Pat Burns and the Smyrna Historical and Genealogical Society in 2001.