The Girls Room @ Gallery Le Snoot
Digital print gallery Le Snoot is famous for quirky shows packed with throngs of art aficionados. This past weekend, the East State Street gallery put on "The Girls Room," an all-girls illustration show that featured over 50 works by eight women addressing the concept of femininity and paying homage to inspirational figures from Marie Antoinette to Amelia Earhart.
Wit, whimsy and awesomely weird text/image combinations abounded in the audacious illustrations of the ladies in "The Girls Room:" Danielle Carey, Jade Johnson, Julia Lavigne, Zoë Lotus Heatwole, Jessica Roux, Patricia Thomasson, Victoria Verhagen, and Natalie Wong.
Speaking of captions, attendees could supply their own on postcards printed with an illustration of a woman slicing a salami. "Why smash the patriarchy when you can slice it," was among the dozens of clever written-in descriptions on display.
The girls also produced an accompanying zine for the show; according to Victoria "Vickie V." Verhagen, the zine featured three to four works by each artist, and the exhibition included up to 10 by each.
The number of contributions guaranteed a broad range of takes on the topic concepts. Among the show's standouts, Natalie Wong's brilliant digital and graphite figural drawings invested the surrealistic imagination with cutting emotive power. The poses and countenances of her drawings' fanciful women masterfully conveyed the gamut of human emotion.
It was one of those weekends that showed off the best aspects of Savannah's eclectic visual arts scene. Excellent work in nearly every conceivable medium was on view, and prices of quality pieces were set from twenty bucks to never-mind-I'm-a-grad-student. Serious exhibitions capped competitive jurying processes, and other shows celebrated the serious number of people in this city who make interesting combinations of matter, color and form.
Photography around Town: Silver and Ink, Tathata and LF Home
Fantastic openings from one end of town to the other spoiled gallery hoppers this past weekend.
As SCAD's premiere juried exhibition of the photography, the annual "Silver and Ink" show at Broughton Street's Gutstein Gallery showcased student photography Saturday evening. Aside the show's opening reception that night, lectures, portfolio reviews and other programs associated with "Silver and Ink" took place all weekend.
Indeed, the photographic arts were well represented. A companion exhibit to the "Silver and Ink" show, "Tathata" at Ashmore Gallery on MLK, was a competitive selection of 12 MFA candidates from SCAD Savannah and Atlanta.
Several blocks south at Non-Fiction Gallery, MFA candidate in Photography Aaron Brumbelow launched his thesis show entitled "LF Home." Common internet shorthand meaning looking for, "LF Home" offered viewers manipulated Google Maps and Street View images of Brumbelow's hometown of Tull, Ark. Taking advantage of the photograph's dependence on its caption, Brumbelow titled the images after experiences and memories specific to the pictured locations. Conjuring nostalgia and curiosity, titles and images established a conceptual space wherein viewers could situate themselves along a spectrum of responses. Whether identifying with Brumbelow's association of meaning with the rural landscape or questioning the images' authenticity, viewers joined the artist in the process of looking for home.
In other Brumbelow news, the artist this week will launch the first issue of his digital publication "Touch.My.Prints," which showcases photography, time based works, virtual sculptures and essays. The first issue focuses on non-player characters in video games, inviting artists and readers to investigate their relationships with these virtual characters inside the digital space of the interactive game.
Vegetable Lamb: A Cotton Story @ Sicky Nar Nar
As part of an internship with Cotton, Incorporated, BFA Fibers SCAD student Megan McConnell organized an exhibit of dozens of works in almost every conceivable medium at Sicky Nar Nar, the gallery-meets-clothing brand located blocks from Forsyth on West Duffy Street. Funded by US cotton growers and importers of cotton products, Cotton, Inc. is the research and marketing company behind the new Cotton University initiative, which aims to improve the understanding of cotton textiles for design professionals, educators and students.
McConnell put together an exhibit of painting, fashion and fibers, photographs, sculpture, mixed media and more that explored cotton's versatile properties as a source of inspiration and as a material component of works of art. The show's opening reception offered attendees prizes, music, art demos and—in keeping with the theme textile—all you can eat pink cotton candy.
