Two exhibitions focusing on contemporary Georgia artists and a third featuring works by female artists will be on view beginning Thursday, Jan 12, 2023, at the Albany Museum of Art.

The Winter Exhibition Reception for members of the AMA is at 5:30 pm on Thursday, when two of the exhibitions—Globalrama, Works by Gregor Turk and What’s SHE Doing? Revisiting the Permanent Collection—open for public viewing. Highlighting Contemporary Art in Georgia: Picture This opened on Dec 22, 2022. The three exhibitions will continue through April 1. The reception is free for AMA members and registration is not required.

“It seems fitting to celebrate the marvelous work of Georgia contemporary artists as we kick off what we hope will be a wonderful 2023,” AMA Executive Director Andrew J. Wulf, Ph.D., said. “We are honored and delighted to share these artworks with the public and to be the temporary home for this next generation of the best of Southern artists. We are also thrilled to draw from our own collection to showcase women artists and their compelling works.”

Highlighting Contemporary Art in Georgia: Picture This, on view in the Haley Gallery, is a traveling exhibition program organized by the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia and the Lyndon House Arts Center. This exhibition was curated by Didi Dunphy, the program supervisor at the Lyndon House Arts Center.

Picture This is the third in the Highlighting Contemporary Art in Georgia series, a triennial of traveling exhibitions that began with Pushing the Press: Printmaking in the South and Cut & Paste: Works of Paper, the latter of which appeared at the Albany Museum of Art in 2020.

The 11 Georgia artists in Picture This represent the wealth of talented artists in the state who are exploring thematic narratives in painted works. These contemporary artists investigate various messages and experiment with paint as a medium for storytelling, each in the artist’s own unique style. From scenes of daily life to beachside gatherings to apocalyptic surrealism to familiar domestic compositions or identity-saturated portraits, this selection of artists and body of works reflect the here and now of contemporary art in Georgia.

Artists whose works are included in Picture This are Bo Bartlett, Holly Coulis, Shanequa Gay, Cheryl Goldsleger, Melissa Huang, Margaret Morrison, Fahamu Pecou, Dianna Settles, Cedric Smith, Tori Tinsley, and Orion Wertz. Huang and Smith have previously had individual exhibitions at the AMA.

In Globalrama, which is in the East Gallery, Atlanta-based artist Turk explores issues related to mapping, cultural signage, and marking of place. The appeal of mapping is not the actual geographic information, but what that information tells us about ourselves as individuals and as a culture. He focuses on the fundamental qualities of mapping—the mysteriousness, inherent biases, cultural authoritativeness, and ability to simultaneously represent and distort reality.

Turk’s formal training is in ceramics, but for the past decade, he also has utilized repurposed rubber—specifically bicycle innertubes. These contrasting materials reinforce different but related concepts: earth, place, and permanence (clay) versus transit, in-betweenness, and mobility (rubber).

Both media feature prominently in Globalrama. Ceramic tablets depict specific geographic choke points around the world, such as straits and peninsulas, and rubber-bound containers of common household products transported far from their origin, some perhaps shipped through the choke points represented in the exhibition.

In the upstairs McCormack Gallery, What’s SHE Doing? is an exhibition of AMA permanent collection works created by female artists.

“The exhibition title suggests, with a modern euphemism, that these women artists are ‘doing something wrong,’ or that their behavior is anomalous to gender roles typically assigned to women,” AMA Director of Curatorial Affairs Katie Dillard said. “While the title may seem to embody an almost juvenile tone that lacks understanding and empathy and implies these women artists are doing something so odd and out of the ordinary, it actually signals a change.

“The artists exhibited in this sampling of the AMA collection draw attention to the vast creativity of women in the early to mid-20th century across multiple borders and cultures. Their works speak to their growth and individual journeys as artists and act as a mouthpiece for their oft lesser-heard stories.”

Many creators in this exhibition, such as Marisol and Dorothy Dehner, have made an impact in the art world at large, contesting concepts of what art can be and how it should be considered, and underscoring the importance of creative expression.

Also on view are Forsaking All Comfort and Prosperity, Works by Maryam Safajoo, which is in the Hodges Gallery through Jan 28, 2023, and Escape Plan, Installation by Elinor Saragoussi, which is on permanent view in the West Gallery.

The AMA is located at 311 Meadowlark Drive off Gillionville Road, adjacent to Albany State University’s west campus. Admission is free, and schools and organizations can schedule free field trips by contacting Director of Education and Public Programming Annie Vanoteghem at [email protected].