Exhibition Openings

Genevieve Gaignard is a Los Angeles-based, multidisciplinary artist whose body of work incorporates installation, sculpture, collage, and photographic self-portraiture to explore race, femininity, and class. As a biracial woman in America, Gaignard investigates the aesthetic and cultural divide between Black and White, a chasm as palpable as it is “invisible”. She interrogates notions of “passing” by positioning her own female body as the chief site of exploration - challenging viewers to navigate the powers and anxieties of intersectional identity. Gaignard’s work has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions including: The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, D.C.; Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, AR; The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; California African American Museum, CA; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, MA; and Prospect.4, LA. Gaignard received her BFA in Photography from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and her MFA in Photography from Yale University.

Craig Drennen is a painter and a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow. He was a participant in Atlanta Contemporary’s studio program from 2010 through 2013 and was included in Painters Panting at Atlanta Contemporary in 2012. His MOCA GA Working Artist Project exhibition took place in 2017. His recent solo exhibitions include Old Athenian & at Stove Works in Chattanooga, TN, and Merchants, Bandits, and Certain Senators at Laney Contemporary in Savannah, GA. He has been an artist-in-residence at Yaddo, MacDowell, the Triangle Arts Fountation, and Skowhegan. His work has been reviewed in Art in America, Artforum, the New York Times, and the Boston Globe. Drennen served as Dean at Skowhegan, teaches at Georgia State University, and manages THE END Project Space in Atlanta. Since 2008, he has organized his studio practice around Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens.

As an interdisciplinary artist born and raised in Dalton, Georgia “The Carpet Capital of the World”, Trish Andersen’s initial attraction to the process of tufting was a means to reconnect with and explore her roots. Years after attending the Savannah College of Art and Design and moving on to live and work in Brooklyn, New York, she began using the medium as an examination of the notion that a thing or a way of being can run in our blood; that perhaps by observing the characteristics of personal origin and establishing commonality and community around those that reverberate in the present, one may be able to begin unearthing the elusive authentic self.

Enter the drips. Combining fibers gathered from field, sheep and those developed on a factory floor, Andersen proves that there is always room for both the vibrant and the muted, the sleek and the wild, cut and looped, soft and cumulus, the dense and the coarse; the unexpected and varied tactile quality of her pieces allow the eyes to open to an emotional one. Her work speaks to the truth that whether they are temporal, cultural, geographical, or interpersonal, boundaries inevitably bleed, and the results are often quite stunning.

Trish lives in Savannah, Georgia and takes projects worldwide.

Tayler studied neon design at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC; 2012) and has been a full-time professional in the neon industry since 2016. Tayler is actively creating new work. She is currently focusing on a new body of work that will be on display this winter at the Illuminate Art Walk Exhibition in Raleigh, NC. Awarded 2021 Regional Emerging Artist in Residence, you can visit her studio at Artspace located in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Natrice Miller is an Atlanta-based photographer/filmmaker whose personal work focuses on documenting the Black experience in America. Clients and publications include The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The United Negro College Fund. She graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Journalism and Graphic Communication in 2005. In addition to exhibiting photography in Atlanta and The U.S., , she has also shown her short films at film festivals locally and abroad. Currently, her personal work focuses on the inner lives of Black women, exploring themes related to beauty, emotion and overlooked traditions and rituals. Inspired by memories and her deep love of Black culture, she uses a mixture of photography and film to tell stories that gives the viewer a glimpse into the humanity and shared experiences of Black Americans.

James Williams III (b. 1992) is a Virginia-born interdisciplinary artist based in Atlanta, Georgia. Although Williams experimented with sculpture prior, he became particularly engaged with his practice in 2016. His studio practice explores the intersections between space, navigation, emotional health, and their relation to identity. In 2018, Williams adopted abstraction as his primary style in efforts to abandon the representational and push the boundaries of form, mood, and tone. Since his adaptation of abstraction, Williams’ work has been featured in various publications including Modern Luxury (US), Architectural Digest (US), and POPEYE Magazine (JP).

Williams strives to investigate the beauty and complexities of humanity in order to produce works that serve as sites of awareness and healing. He is innately inspired by personal accounts and the shared experiences of individuals in his orbit. After absorbing stories of past and present, Williams returns to a familiar process of automatic drawing as he would in grade school to work through the emotions that derived from those evolving narratives. Those forms then are placed under a critical lens which allows Williams to receive ancestral themes that later are worked into paintings, sculpture, studio furniture, and instillation. His choice of materials is often industrial, inspired by his admiration for structures that endure time.

By operating between sculpture and studio furniture, both disciplines have informed each other and allowed Williams to channel his voice through various mediums. Although self-taught, Williams has received direction from accomplished fine artists over the years. He had the opportunity to work under Lawrence “Naturel” Atoigue during 2018 as studio director and studio assistant to Basil Watson during 2019. The time Williams spent in each studio was integral to understanding his approach and how to navigate a fine art practice.

Ebony Marshman is an artist and early childhood educator that believes imaginations must be nourished. She received her BFA in Painting from Western Kentucky University in 2013, and M. Ed, in Montessori Education from Loyola University Maryland in 2016. Since completion of her Masters, Ebony has worked in Washington D.C. as a teacher in public Montessori schools.

In her art, Ebony frequently makes use of paint and paper. She relates to her practice of painting as a constructive communion with self and spirit much akin to journaling. Her most recent solo exhibition, Inner(re)visions (2021) at Western Kentucky University featured works from various bound collections of paintings that she refers to as “paintbooks”.

Ebony is 2013 recipient of a Kentucky Foundation for Women Artist Enrichment Grant, as well as a 2013 Jack E. Lunt Scholarship courtesy of the WKU Art Department. She has been the recipient of numerous scholarships to study abroad as well as a WKU Office of Scholar Development Lifetime Experience Grant.

Raised across the South, Ebony connects to her roots by connecting to the love and legacy of Black folx, who have had the audacity to joyously create while navigating life on this land. When she is not painting, Ebony enjoys grounding in nature, learning alongside children, and freedom dreaming.

Grace Kisa was born in Nairobi, Kenya. Her father’s profession as an economist afforded my family the opportunity to travel and live in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, McLean, Virginia, Toronto Canada then Gaborone, Botswana before she came to Atlanta, Georgia to pursue a degree in Art form the Art Institute In Atlanta. She now lives in Lawrenceville, Georgia a suburb outside of Atlanta where She makes a living as an artist. Lawrenceville, Georgia is located in Gwinnett County which has recently been described as the most culturally diverse county in the South. She grew up as a “third culture kid”. Kay Branaman Eakin describes a third culture kid as “someone who, as a child, has spent a significant period of time in one or more cultures other than their own, thus integrating elements of those cultures, and their own birth culture, into a third culture”. “I have developed a flexibility and adaptability and can draw inspiration from a broad cultural knowledge base. I am able at once to feel at home everywhere and nowhere. Through these experiences I have an expanded world view which allows me to perceive it differently. I am open to cross-cultural exchanges, and collaboration and this is reflected in my art”.