Current Exhibition

“Painting is a visual record of the mind, the body, and the human spirit.” —Harry Ally

“Here is an autopsy of my life as a twentieth century woman and an artist, a body of evidence built through my soul’s perception.” — Karen Swenholt

Body of Evidence

OCTOBER 2019 – January 2020

Karen Swenholt is a figurative sculptor who lives and works in Northern Virginia. Influences from the West Coast’s Bay Area Figurative Movement combine with the emotional power of abstract expressionism from her East Coast studies and origins to form the foundation of Swenholt’s work today.

Harry Ally is recognized as one of the South’s finest figurative painters. Retired after 30 years of as a professor of painting and drawing, he now holds the title professor Emeritus at Valdosta State University.

More info on Public Reception

UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS

Altars of Reconciliation

June – August 2020

“Native American Christians are often accused of being assimilated or “colonized.” Yet it’s not that simple—especially for the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee, and Seminole people of the Southeastern United States who used to be labeled ‘civilized.’

“The installations in Altars of Reconciliation express diverse, individual faith experiences of three Southeastern Native artists. Each ‘altar’ depicts ongoing personal reconciliation between the artist and God, with awareness of the complex history of Christianity among Southeastern tribes and the mystery of faith that transcends it.”

—Contributing scholar Stacy Fife Pratt, PhD, Muscogee (Creek)

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PAST EXHIBITIONS

Matthew Doll, Debris

Night, Desert, Garden at Still Point

JULY – SEPTEMBER 2019

Night, Desert, Garden. Each of these represent broad geographic categories. They are landscapes of possibility, places of refuge and exile, distances to be crossed out of necessity or desire. They are places of beauty and hostility, zones of accessibility and fragility. These paintings were made in a wide context between Jerusalem and Rome, cities celebrated and burdened by their own identities. They include passages that speak peace against the abuse of power, and scenes of impossible areas of trespass.

Using loaded place-names and figures, such as Europa, Golan, Caesar, and Leper as a way to invite existing associations for the viewer, the work resides in a tension of familiarity, conceptualized to be in dialogue with the places we live and how we share our relationship to it. In the diverse language of making, painting offers distinct boundaries of perception which negotiate distances from events or places with singularity. If the work succeeds in drawing alongside these emphases, it may aid in framing a vision that is empathetic and compassionate, one which prioritizes solidarity in a moment of increasing division.

Matthew Doll is an American painter and graphic designer based in Orvieto, Italy. Night, Desert, Garden was created in a wide context between Jerusalem and Rome, cities celebrated and burdened by their own identities. This solo exhibition explores charged spaces, landscapes of beauty and hostility, including passages that speak peace against the abuse of power, and scenes of impossible areas of trespass. Using loaded place-names and figures, Doll invites dialogue with the places we live and how we share our relationship to it.

March – July 2019

Marc Chagall and the Sacred brings together the spirituality and imagination of one of the twentieth century’s most beloved artists. With wit and joy, the art of Marc Chagall is filled with reoccurring symbols of his own visual memory, childhood fantasy, and Jewish heritage. “Art seems to me to be a state of soul more than anything else,” he wrote. This exhibition includes luminous interpretations of some of his most favorite sacred stories, including original etchings and lithographs from his 1956 and 1960 Bible series. With the sophisticated artistry of a master printmaker, each work is a delightful and colorful interpretation that lets the viewer enter the sacred world of Marc Chagall.

Marc Chagall (1877-1985) was a Russian-French artist born in a Lithuanian Jewish Hassidic family near the city of Vitebsk. Chagall is known for his creative work in nearly every artistic format, including stained glass created for cathedrals of Reims, the UN, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Jerusalem Windows in Israel, in as much as the media of painting, illustration, ceramics, stage sets, tapestries, and fine art printmaking. The landscape of his childhood and the sacred imagination afforded by his Jewish roots made their way into everything Chagall created. An early modernist, Chagall saw the sacred stories of the Law and the Prophets as the greatest source of poetry of all time. “The Bible is like an echo of nature and the secret I have tried to transmit.” With childlike dreams and interrogation, the art of Chagall invites viewers to see the real in the fantastic, the sacred in the story, and the color in life itself.

Marc Chagall, Moses II

Craig Hawkins, Dear Rekha

Beautiful खूबसूरत

November – February 2019

Witnessing to remarkable beauty in the face of suffering.

CRAIG HAWKINS | ELIZABETH JONES

Beautiful is a collaborative exhibition featuring photography by Elizabeth Jones and painting by artist Craig Hawkins. With portraiture in multiple media, the intent of this exhibition is to witness to remarkable beauty in the face of suffering. The work captures the faces of women in India who have suffered from painful burns.

Still Point partnered with humanitarian aid organization Wellspring International to honor these remarkable women through art. A full color book of photography and limited-edition prints signed by artist Craig Hawkins also accompany also accompany the exhibit. One hundred percent of the proceeds from sales and donations pledged throughout the duration of the exhibit will be designated toward the building of a new surgical burn and treatment center in India.

Beautiful is now traveling! If you missed your opportunity to see this remarkable exhibit at Still Point, read about new and upcoming events here. If you are interested in bringing Beautiful to a gallery, hospital, or venue near you, contact gallery@stillpointarts.org for more details.

Selfie:
Identity at Arm’s Length

July – October 2018

A group exhibition featuring Atlanta artists engaging themes of identity in their work. Artists include Antonio Darden, Haylee Anne, William Massey, Angela Davis Johnson, Michael Dillon, Jessica Caldas, Matthew Phillips, Danielle Deadwyler, JOEKINGATL, Angela Bortone, Hasani Sahlehe, Jen DePlour , Sara Zimmerman, Evan Jones, Craig Hawkins, and Rose Smith.

Georges Rouault (1871-1958) occupies a unique place amongst twentieth century artists. A contemporary of Cubism, Expressionism, and Fauvism, he never aspired to belong to any one of these movements. Often categorized as a religious painter, he was, above all, independent. He did not find his inspiration in an abstract way, but rather in observing real life as much as the highest form of spirituality. Georges Rouault was a painter who did not need religious subjects in order for his work to be stamped with the characteristics of holiness.

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Out of the Depths is a collaborative traveling art exhibition that investigates the current migrant crisis from the perspective of a Lebanese street photographer (Fadi BouKaram, Beirut, Lebanon) and an American painter (Joe Cory, Birmingham, Alabama). In the exhibit, powerful images of the Middle East are juxtaposed with paintings based on filtered information mediated by American news sources. Motifs of water and navigational symbols further pervade the imagery, as viewers confront themes of proximity and distance along with complex images of humanity and assumptions of what it means to be living as a refugee. The exhibition is curated by Matt Schneider (Birmingham, Alabama).

Read more about Out of the Depths>>

From October to December 2017, Still Point hosted the original works of Sadao Watanabe, Japan’s foremost print artist of the 20^th century. Born in 1913, Watanabe found inspiration in the mingei folk art movement that developed in Japan in the mid-1920s to promote traditional handcrafts made from natural materials. Working with his wife, Harue, Watanabe cut all his stencil patterns by hand and printed his images on handmade mulberry paper, coloring them with vegetable and mineral pigments. He created distinctive works both on untreated sheets of washi Japanese paper and large folio-sized prints on momigami wrinkled paper, made by crumpling and stretching sheets of mulberry paper to create a textured surface.

Read More About Sadao Watanabe

A cross-cultural exhibit that explores the history, social wounds, and ongoing reconciliation efforts of South Africa. In June 2013, twenty artists and educators from North America and six African countries—Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Zimbabwe—gathered in South Africa for two weeks of living, learning, and creating together. They undertook an intensive program engaging South Africa and the remarkable role of art and artists within its history, culture, and contemporary reality.

“In South Africa,” says Okwui Enwezor, one of Africa’s most eminent art critics, “art is not just an interpretation or facsimile of history, but a moral force in the production of a new reality, and hope for a damaged society.” The resulting exhibit signals the way artists walk between shadow and light, the creative voices that offer the hope of resistance, remembrance, reconciliation, representation, and revisioning. Two of the participating artists, Margaret Allotey-Pappoe and Joseph Cory, will offer comments on their experience, the artwork, and the human need for creative hope within global and local realities of race and reconciliation.

Hospitality was the first exhibition hosted by Still Point featuring work from 19 participating artists exploring the theme of hospitality. The artists spoke of making space, of seeing the unnoticed or the ordinary, the self and the stranger. They offered images of layers hidden beneath the surface, of ecosystems with room for darkness and beauty. They depicted humanity tied to humanity, the choice to embrace or exclude, and possibly, in the same moment, to entertain mystery. They demonstrated a generous reception of paint and spice and found-materials, playing host and making room.

Hospitality is an exhibit that considers the art of making space; the kind reception and entertaining of guests, visitors, and strangers; the virtue of a great soul who cares for the universe through the ties of humanity. It is both an exhibition and an invitation from nineteen contributing artists and Still Point.