A “neighborhood” of talented artists from the Athens, GA area and college educators closer to home in Southwest Georgia will be in attendance 5-7 pm on Thursday, Aug 9, 2018 for the Albany Museum of Art’s Summer Reception.
 
The reception is for the museum’s current exhibitions—Neighborhood for Artists: Narrative Painting by Four Georgia Artists in the Haley Gallery, Educators as Artists: A Juried College Faculty Exhibition in the East Gallery, and Florence Prisant: A Retrospective in the West Gallery.
 
The event is free and open to the public.
 
Traveling to Albany for the reception will be the painters whose works are included in Neighborhood for Painters: Grammy winner Art Rosenbaum, Jennifer Hartley, Michelle Fontaine and Terry Rowlett. AMA Guest Curator Didi Dunphy also will be at the event.
 
The Athens artists share common characteristics in their work. They tell stories with their art, and their works are large in size, up to 78 inches by 106 inches for Rosenbaum’s Rakestraw’s Dream, an oil on canvas piece he created in 1993.
 
“Neighborhood for Painters has been a popular show with museum visitors since its opening (on June 28),” AMA Executive Director Paula Williams said. “The stories they tell on these large, vibrant canvases have resonated with everyone who views them.”
 
Rosenbaum will conduct an informal session Thursday evening in the Haley Gallery. And visitors should not be surprised if they hear Rosenbaum perform at the reception. In addition to his work as an artist and educator, he is a collector and performer of traditional American folk music. Rosenbaum won a Grammy in 2008 for Best Documentary Recording for his boxed set Art of Field Recording Vol. 1: Fifty Years of American Traditional Music Documented by Art Rosenbaum.
 
Neighborhood for Artists continues in the Haley Gallery through Sept 29, 2018.
 
Those attending the reception also will be among the first to see the AMA’s Educators as Artists exhibition, which opened Thursday, Aug 2, 2018 in the East Gallery. Included in the show are paintings, carvings, sculptures, photographs and mixed media works by college faculty members at five Southwest Georgia universities and colleges.
 
Juried by Dunphy, artists whose works are included in the Educators as Artists exhibition are Ulf Kirchdorfer, Michael Mallard, Scott Marini, O. Victor Miller (retired) and Charles Williams of Albany State University; Hollis Barnett, Julie Bowland, Evelyn Davis-Parker, Kristy Hughes, Sean Hurley, Selena Nawrocki, Richard Allen Peterman and Kalina Winska of Valdosta State University; Jordan Walker of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College; Chris Johnson of Andrew College, and Rich Curtis of Thomas University.
 
“We were pleased with the response we received from college faculty to our call for entries,” Wiliams said. “We know summer can be a busy time for them, with many away from campus.
 
“We also were pleased with the quality and variety of work that was submitted. We are happy to have the opportunity to show the talent of these educators who are training the next generation of artists.”
 
Educators as Artists continues in the East Gallery through Oct 13, 2018.
 
The Summer Reception also will give visitors a chance to visit the West Gallery to see examples of the life’s work of accomplished Albany artist Florence Prisant, who passed away at age 91 last April.
 
Florence Prisant: A Retrospective includes examples of her pastel and oil work. She was known for her portrait, landscape, still life and abstract work, as well as the vibrant colors she employed.
 
The retrospective of her work continues in the West Galley through Aug 25, 2018.