Art Relish

Athens artists Rinne Allen and Susan Hable’s book Colorset 3 features Allen’s photographs and Hable’s paintings that can be left in book form or torn out into posters and displayed.

Fall Line Press
1000 Marietta Street, Suite 112
Atlanta, GA 30318

{Poem88} presents the work of artists Julia Kjelgaard and Mehmet Dogu. Trained as a printmaker and an architect respectively, both Kjelgaard and Dogu use color to communicate our relationships to space and place. Beyond the formal beauty of the work, both artists urge the view- er toward a more nuanced condition of connectedness: Kjelgaard through the layering of imagery and Dogu, perhaps, more directly, through the democratic glow of colored light encompassing the gallery and the viewer equally.

Kjelgaard says of her work:
“My fundamental interest for many years has been in interconnectedness. As a visual artist, I am interested in exploring how we as human beings negotiate the spaces we perceive between things. These spaces of difference, culture , history, location and relationship all circle around the fundamental knowledge that, in fact, what we see as separate is actually interconnected. I explore both how my own mind, but also the “minds of others interpret our visual world and how visual images mimic the mind’s ability to make sense (or not) out of the fragments.”

Kjelgaard’s mixed media works (digital images printed on canvas with hand-painted elements applied to the top surface) invite the viewer to consider sacred spaces and their universality and interchangeability: for instance, butter candles burning in a temple at Dharamsala and a chapel in southern France; while Dogu, through his light sculptures radiating into evening light, transforms the gallery into a kind of sacred space: everything and everyone is altered by an unexpected glow.

In both artists’ works, too, there are juxtapositions created through montage: a mash-up of color and photography; but, at the heart of “Living Color” an existential idea of being within space and with each other.

{Poem88}
1100 Howell Mill Road
Suite A03
Atlanta, Ga. 30318

Photographer Mary Anne Mitchell will exhibit her new series of photographs entitled “Poetic Translation” at Mason Murer Fine Art gallery in Atlanta beginning Friday, February 17, with a reception for the artist from 7-10 p.m. The exhibition, Mitchell’s third at the gallery, runs through Saturday, March 31.

With the “Poetic Translation” exhibition, Mitchell explores the artistic juxtaposition of visual and written expression. In this series, Mitchell was inspired by the writings of 19th and 20th Century poets and writers, including, Louisa May Alcott, Hans Christian Anderson, Samuel Beckett, Lewis Carroll, Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot and Edwin Muir, among others.

In her photographs, Mitchell portrays her interpretation of the lyricism imbued in the respective author’s poetry and prose verses, which touch upon universal themes such as nature, dreams, identity, loneliness, and spirituality.

She chose the particular selection of literary verses to explore the sensuality of expression, the search for meaning, and the myriad emotional aspects of life, with the aim of creating a moment of shared recognition of life.

Mitchell uses traditional photographic printing techniques to create lith and silver gelatin prints, which are then treated with selenium, and toned to enhance the timeless quality and enigmatic draw of classical verse. The technique of her current work involves using film often manipulating it to achieve a grainy ethereal quality. To enhance the process, she used a variety of photographic papers to further nuance the images.

Mary Anne Mitchell lives in Atlanta, GA has been working as a photographer for more than 25 years. Her previous solo shows at Mason Murer Fine Art include “Altered States” in 2009 and “Reflecting Back” in 2007. The Wells Gallery in Kiawah Island, South Carolina showcased her exhibition entitled “Gothic Mystique” in 2010.

Through March 31.

Mason Murer Fine Art
199 Armour Drive
Atlanta, GA, 30324