In the early
twentieth century, the Atlanta College of Art fostered the growth of
contemporary art in Atlanta. The High Museum’s Southeastern Annual Exhibition
advanced the development of contemporary art in the 1940s through the 1960s,
and purchases from the exhibition helped build the Museum’s fledgling art
collection. In the 1970s and 1980s, contemporary art programs at commercial
galleries in Atlanta and at Georgia State University led to a dynamic
cross-pollination that greatly advanced the city’s visual arts community, which
today includes artist-run galleries, co-ops, and street artists. These aspects
of Atlanta’s visual culture are reflected in the Museum’s growing collection of
paintings and drawings by Atlanta-based artists.
Radcliffe Bailey, En Route, 2005
Here a box form echoes the earlier work of Joseph Cornell, allowing an aesthetic segue into certain mainstream trends, while also incorporating African American and African references, symbols, and iconology. This work, more lyrical and layered than Bailey’s earlier work, also seems to relate to the assemblage and collage traditions in the work of Robert Rauschenberg.
Nellie Mae Rowe, Pig on the Expressway, 1980
Nellie Mae Rowe (American, 1900–1982) lived on Paces Ferry Road in Vinings, Georgia, and welcomed visitors to “Nellie’s Playhouse,” which one guest called a “wonder of the land.” Rowe decorated her house with found-object installations, handmade dolls, chewing-gum sculptures, and hundreds of drawings, which she displayed in books, lined up on ledges, and hung cheek to jowl on walls. Thanks to a major gift from Judith Alexander, the High offers the largest public collection of Rowe’s artwork.
Cosmo Whyte, Sweet, Sweet Back, 2015
Cosmo Whyte is both a multidisciplinary artist and educator. His art reflects on the legacy of colonialism and migration. This topic means a lot to Whyte, who moved from Jamaica to the United States in 2001, at age nineteen, to attend Bennington College and pursue a BFA in painting. Whyte uses his personal experiences to question constructs of masculinity, ethnicity, and belonging in his art. He works as a visual arts professor and program director at Morehouse College.
Eldren Bailey, Pyramid, 1970s
Eldren M. Bailey constructed an outdoor sculpture garden in Southwest Atlanta filled with monumental bleached concrete sculptures that ranged from renderings of political figures to the crucifixion of Christ. Pyramid is a memorial sculpture dedicated to a woman Bailey knew. The pyramidal form—inlaid with stones, costume jewelry, and pennies—functions as a memory jug where the adornments allude to the legacy of the deceased. Bailey’s use of pennies can be traced to the African American tradition of affixing currency to graves, which was believed to bring good fortune.
Sanithna Phansavanh, This Mortal Coil, 2015
Sanithna Phansavahn is an artist living and working in Atlanta. He earned his AFA in drawing and painting from the University of Georgia in 2000, and his BFA in design from the Georgia State University in 2003. He has shown in numerous exhibitions, including a solo exhibition at Young Blood Gallery, Atlanta. His work deconstructs and examines the human condition, particularly the dynamic between creation, existence, and permanence, is at the core of his focus. He tries to find reflections of us in various explorations, from simple portraits to fuller, personal narratives, all of which is seen in his drawn works.
Mac Stewart, Cut Out, 2014
Mac Stewart is a young artist living and working in Atlanta. Known for his large murals — such as the ones he's painted for Living Walls and Miami Art Basel — Stewart is an artist who also works across many mediums. Across these mediums, however, is an idiosyncratic style that is consistently recognizable: patterned and abstracted objects, faces, and other figures that seems to draw both from neo-impressionist Cloisonné tradition, as well as a more graphic, street art aesthetic.
Fahamu Pecou, Messenger II, 2014
Fahamu Pecou (b. 1975) is an American painter based in Atlanta whose intention is to comment on contemporary and hip-hop culture while simultaneously subverting it to include his ideas on fine art. His most recent work addresses concerns around representations of black masculinity and how these images come to define black men across generations and geographical boundaries.
Xie Caomin, Mandala #12, 2010
Mandala #12 is from a series of paintings by Atlanta-based artist Xie Caomin titled Mandala of Ruins, which presents the artist’s interpretation of Buddhist ideas in the form of a mandala, a symbol representing the universe. Caomin appropriates images from the Internet and from print media and transforms them into visual signs that speak to dualities in Buddhist philosophy, such as destruction and creation, absence and presence, plenitude and emptiness. Mandala #12 transforms horrible images depicting the ruins of the World Trade Center into a kaleidoscopic symbol of spiritual healing, meditation, and renewal.
Greg Mike, Aloha, 2014
Born and raised in Connecticut, childhood trips to NYC in the mid-’80s exposed Greg Mike to the creative potential of reinventing public spaces through art and design. Always obsessed with the boundless energy and crisp line work of iconic American mid-century cartoons, by his early teens Greg began using the walls of his native state to fuse these two passions together. Mixing the take-no-prisoners bombast of classic NYC street art with the eagle-eyed precision of mass market illustration and animation has been his goal from the beginning. Currently based in Atlanta, GA, Greg is the founder and creative director of ABV, a multi-platform studio specializing in branding, apparel design and visual production. A hub for Atlanta innovators, ABV also functions as a gallery exhibiting artists from around the world, highlighting emerging talents alongside globally recognized names.
Mimi Hart Silver, Coffer, 2013
A recent graduate of Savannah College of Art and Design with a BFA in Painting, Mimi Hart Silver currently lives and works in Atlanta. She has shown her work in several states and abroad. Recent exhibitions include Passage at the Goat Farm; Decembrist Revival in whitespec at whitespace gallery; Ann Metzger Memorial Exhibition with St. Louis Artists’ Guild, for which she won Best in Show; and East Meets West at Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah and Hong Kong.
Fabian Williams, Gossip, 2014
Fabian Williams is a well-known artist living and working in Atlanta. He recieved his BFA in 1999 from East Carolina University. He has had a number of solo exhibitions in the Atlanta area, the most recent of which, Rockingwell, at the Rialto, was the show the proposed acquisition was first shown. "Gossip," shows Willams affecting the stylistic tenor of Norman Rockwell, but the work carries a deep mediation on community, race, and culture.
Lucinda Bunnen, Heat Processed: Man in Landscape, 1973
Lucinda Bunnen’s experimentation with photographic processes was evident in some of her earliest important images. Heat Processed: Man in Landscape, 1973 is an outstanding example of her willingness to break with convention even by heating the photographic paper during development. In this photograph and Horse and Moth, 1970-75, her manipulation of color, tone, and positive and negative images radically rework the images in a distinctly photographic manner. At other times Bunnen used collage techniques such as her Mandala: Pink Dogwoods, 1970-75. Other experiments included use of infrared film in Rocks and directing a model for dramatic effect in Shrouded Figure. Her new digital print of Points of Light is a recent example of her ongoing experimentation with new technologies.
Michi Meko, The Standard, 2014
Michi Meko is an artist living and working in Atlanta. Originally from Florence, Alabama, Meko earned his BFA from the University of North Alabama in 1999. He has shown in solo exhibitions throughout Atlanta, most recently at the Alan Avery Art Company. Meko has also been awarded a number of important grants and fellowship that include WonderRoot, Flux Projects, and the Forward Arts Foundation.
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