Katherine Agurcia, Lee Ashburn, Tamara Garvey, and Matt Hebermehl are reuniting as a group for the first time since their last show together in spring 2008, when they were all waiting tables together. The majority of the artists now live out of town, so it's a reunion with the city of Savannah - where they all went to school, worked, and got their start as artists.
Katherine Agurcia is a commercial portrait photographer who is exploring the classical world of botanical photography: what does it mean to “formalize” flowers and foliage? What human attributes carry over, or are interpreted, as seen from the angle of standard studio photography? Inspiration from a variety of sources, including standards like Georgia O’Keefe, Robert Mapplethorpe, classic botanical print catalogues and modern photographers like Andrew Zuckerman, guided the initial image-making of this budding collection.
Lee Ashburn depicts the abstract nature of our atmosphere. Usually perceived as a duality of light and dark, his “landscapes” funnel the positive-negative space of the sky into a confined space. When hung on a wall, however, his works extend beyond the confines of the canvas and pose the question of infinity. Using camera-phone and social media images as a starting point, he urges the viewer to consider themes of timelessness and possibility.
Tamara Garvey has created a series of nature/floral paintings, sized much larger than her usual work, as a response to spending so much more time on walks than with groups of people. This series incorporates her love of linework mixed with abstract washes, plus relevant nature factoids and/or quotes from famous poets. Flowers are fragile and short-lived, but also infallibly cyclical, which is a comfort. Cherry blossoms, and seasonal flowers in general, remind us to celebrate life’s beauty and transience while we can.
Matt Hebermehl will be showing a series of portraits drawn from in-person sessions with friends in Los Angeles, all connected by the Savannah diaspora, as we live in a permanent state of SAVANGELES. This series of drawings is the beginning of a larger personal project to reconnect with people in person after a year and a half of isolation, limited social interactions, and to overcome the expanse of a decentralized city. The drawings follow up the series of portraits drawn via FaceTime sessions during the spring shelter-at-home period of 2020 that he refers to as COVID Calls.
