June 3- 24, 2022

Gallery 378   378 Clifton Rd NE, Atlanta, GA 30307

404 530 9277 378artgallery@gmail.com

Hours   Fri and Sat from 1-6pm

The exhibition _____ The World is an expression of our times, in which artists are inspired by the too-real-not-fiction happenings of the last two years.   Artists were invited to offer up small works, sacrifices that are deceivingly quiet in their smallness, abstract or narrative, a balm, may be a wake-up-call. Curators Lisa Alembik and Martha Whittington, both artists and educators, felt the need to gather artists to respond to the absurdities and the beauties of this time.  _____ The World is an opening, not a prescriptive theme—not necessarily negative or celebratory. Its premise shifts and renews from artist-to-artist. The artists in _____ The World may not necessarily fall in line with this disagreeable statement, but they have agreed to be a part of this happening.

Artists are doing what they normally do, listening, thinking, and creating. Alejandro Aguilera works in a broad range of media. In this exhibition has carefully crafted an orange-face fiend from mango pits, along with drawings that wryly comment on the brutality of the abuse of power. Amandine Drouet mysteriously weaves everyday items and detritus together with sharks, butterflies, and other beasts, imbuing them with a vitality only restrained by the edges of form.  Craig Dongoski’s hallucinatory images disintegrate to reform into vibrations and an exquisite confusion of hands.

Barbara Schreiber anthropomorphizes the animals who haunt our concrete jungles, posing the dangers at play in every day interactions. Schreiber is the sole artist in the exhibition who no longer lives in the Atlanta area, residing in Charlotte NC. Sarah Emerson brazenly belies the chord of melancholy that sounds through her work with her intense palette and extreme-pop language that is surprisingly blended with the natural world. Doyle Trankina toys with idioms in bronze, and his ceramic decomposing fruit shows how even that which is nourishing can rot.  Coorain Devin’s sensibility twists domestic symbols into challenging knots so that they may never, ever, be seen the same again. 

Through collage, found image and ceramics, Mario Petrirena’s contemplative sculptures cut to the heart with their intimacy, tugging at the arteries of emotion and strangely, patriotism. Selena Lillo, who seems to extract body parts in her work, here comments sans judgement on what we put into our bodies to make us feel more whole and less isolated from our surroundings.  Andy Moon Wilson rapaciously draws small works, many of which feel like intersecting universes slicing at and through each other with high key colors and complex patterns, infinitely hemorrhaging. Storyteller Raphael Bahindwa calls on his Congolese identity for symbolism, using arrows and masks in his dense drawings to act upon the powers of the warrior.  Stephanie Kolpy’s gorgeously layered prints with brilliant, devastating surfaces underlie the constant terror of warfare—and by the way, “Russian warship, go f*** yourself.” Terry S. Hardy, drew the mask he wore to work each day during the early days of the Pandemic, poignantly coinciding with the dates of this exhibit, two years ago. These drawings helped him stay grounded during the speed of Covid’s devastation. 

In his work in this exhibition, Steven L. Anderson articulates that “He’ll never stop making art.” If there is something that the last two years has shown us, it is that artists do not stop. Artmaking is a calling in addition to an occupation. One does not go on strike from one’s inner boss or seek out a union to identify healthy boundaries. _____ The World is a rallying cry to get engaged, to find passion, to  “LOVE ALL THE F***ING WAY,” as  Anderson writes.

_____ The World is inspired by a hopeful pessimism, by truths rolled up and deep fried with sarcasm, dipped into a heavy sauce of disillusion, swallowed while holding one’s nose. _____ The World invites visitors to check in with themselves and then consider what they’ll have for dinner and what will they do after the show? May be, we can all sing as the late great Patty Lee did–“If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing.” (Recorded first in 1969, written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and always relevant.)