Art Relish

The Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design Galleries at Georgia State University presents “Stewart Ziff: Office Hours.”

Ziff, who recently joined the faculty of the School of Art & Design, will be exhibiting a work that is simultaneously object-based, performative and site specific. Ziff will be “occupying” the gallery during “office hours” from 3 until 8pm, Monday through Thursday and from 12:30 until 6pm on Friday for the entire duration of the show.

Ziff says about the project, “I bring to the gallery the current state of studio work in progress to occupy the space and continue the work in-situ so that, in an ongoing dialog of idea, poetics and discourse, nothing is defined with any certainty of completion, remaining differently in a state of perpetual flux,where the mission of engaged exchange with the audience is one of ‘relational aesthetics’ in an inter relational space of practice oriented action, disengaged from the status of the autonomous object of contemplation.”

Visitors to the gallery will be invited to participate in an open conversation with artist while he pursues the development of a work of installation from inception to conclusion. Ziff will be engaged with a variety of activities in the making of the work that include the building of home made projectors for video, the printing of images in uncommon ways, the construction of roboticactors with legos, and other processes.

Through March 2.

Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design Galleries
10 Peachtree Center Ave.
Atlanta, GA 30303.

The Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design Gallery presents “Aural Regeneration” on view February 27 to March 2. The public is invited to the closing reception and performance on Thursday, March 2, from 5-8 p.m. The event is part of the Downtown First Thursdays Arts Walk.

With the ingenuity of a mechanic and flare of a fine craftsman, Myrna Lee Pronchuk injects the art of sound into mundane life. Combining mark making, composition, sound installation and building of hybrid instruments, Pronchuk creates an environment for a dialogue to occur between the audio, visual and human experience.

Pronchuk’s machines crank, lurch into sound like some animated Kurt Schwitters assemblage or Goldberg contraption. The viewer becomes a participant in the excavation of the abstraction of the human experience with obscuring the confines between form and expression, sound and visual, experience and imitation.

Welch School Galleries/ GSU
10 Peachtree Center Ave.
Atlanta, GA 30303

Sandler Hudson Gallery announces an exhibition of recent works by Atlanta artists Andrew Crawford and Katherine Mitchell.

“Andrew Crawford’s sculpture stems from a classical approach to object making. He finds his inspiration in everyday objects, often from his own workshop. Using traditional sculpture materials, innovative techniques, and an emphasis on craftsmanship, Crawford seeks to eliminate the utilitarian quality of useful objects, leaving their recognizable qualities to dictate their own identity. Exploring the relationship between manufactured items and hand made objects, he exploits the boundaries between mechanical and organic form. His goal is to create objects that invite the viewer to recognize and appreciate familiar imagery.”

Katherine Mitchell’s new body of work explores “the ways in which the houses in which we have lived in our early lives influence our dreams, day-dreams, creativity and art. The texts embedded in these paintings include many ideas from the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard, whose book The Poetics of Space was important in my conceiving of these works. He said, “Through poems [or paintings] we touch the ultimate poetic depth of the space of the house,” which “is one of the greatest powers of integration for the thoughts, memories, and dreams of mankind.” Bachelard also reflected on the importance of “a dream of elsewhere.” This idea is seen in the works based on journeys involving a formative, early experience of literature. The inner journey, like the inner dwelling, is essential.”

Andrew Crawford was born in Chatham, NJ and moved to Atlanta a year later. Crawford graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a concentration in Sculpture. “Crawford’s studio, the Andrew T. Crawford Ironworks, was founded in 1993 and is built on Crawford’s creation of functional objects, ornamental ironwork and industrial fabrication.” Crawford has three full-time craftsmen who collaborate with him in making sculpture and functional objects of original design.

Mitchell was born in Memphis, TN and now resides in Atlanta, GA. Katherine Mitchell received her BFA from Atlanta College of Art, MFA from Georgia State University and did Post-graduate studies at Tyler School of Art in Rome, Italy. The Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia presents, Places of Memory and Dreams, a solo exhibition opening December 17, 2011, continuing through March 31, 2012. This Working Artist Project exhibition was funded through the generosity of the Charles Loridans Foundation.

Through April 7.

Sandler Hudson Gallery
1009-A Marietta St. NW
Atlanta GA 30318