Epic in their explosive color yet confined within painted frames, the large-scale mixed-media paintings of Ken Gun Min capture the paradoxes of our beautifully complex world, where utopian idealism collides with dystopian realities. Through lush landscapes and tender portraits, Min orchestrates sublime scenes — both real and imagined — that draw from his experiences as a queer Korean immigrant in the U.S. Focusing on the emotion of his parafictional stories, Min showcases the moment of beauty before destruction, stirring feelings of uneasiness and awe. Ultimately, his works highlight the importance of seeing life in its entirety and remind viewers to offer gentleness to all journeying through this vast existence.

On raw canvases treated with gesso and Japanese bookbinding glue, Min applies a unique cross-cultural blend of materials, such as Western oils, Korean pigments, and hand-embroidered beads, that address his transition from South Korea to the U.S. and challenge the boundaries of painting and craft. These textural compositions, inspired by historical European paintings and East Asian textiles, evoke Min’s “queer utopia,” underpinned by the repressed histories and urban legends of Los Angeles. Depictions of animals such as lions, peacocks, and moths, adorned with gems and facing their demise, serve as allegories for the gentrification of local queer Asian hubs and as anthropomorphic symbols of “cruisers” or gay sex workers, whose lives are often at risk in their profession. While Min’s portrayals of male figures wading in water also allude to the tragic homophobic murders and disappearances of transgender people at a nearby lake, his centering of intimate, muscular men of color brings visibility to queer communities and offers new conceptions of masculinity, sexuality, and race.

Jan. 24 - June 22, 2025

CALL FOR ENTRIES: https://www.ologygallery.com/submissionsaltsodasubmerged

DEADLINE: Saturday, April 12, 2025, 12 AM EST

Salt, soda, submerged... oh my. Alternative firing and “painting” methods will be explored in this juried exhibit featuring soda and salt fired ceramics and the submerged / emersed canvases of Henry Dean. Juror Samantha Hostert

MAY 17TH - JUNE 28TH, 2025

OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, MAY 17TH, 5:30-8 PM

CLOSING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, JUNE 28TH, 5:30-8 PM

(IMAGE COURTESY OF SAMANTHA HOSTERT)

The SCAD Museum of Art celebrates pioneering figure of American design and brand development Vera Neumann with an exhibition of her drawings, watercolors, silkscreened production prints, and scarves generously gifted to the museum by The Vera Neumann Artwork Trust. Neumann is perhaps best known for her eponymous line of Vera scarves that have been worn by fashionistas, first ladies, and movie stars alike. Identifying as an “artist who paints things for people rather than for walls,” Neumann defined the aesthetics of the mid-20th century with her complex patterns, abstract forms, and vibrant colors. The exhibition situates Neumann’s work in dialogue with a collection of silk scarves produced by New York-based artist textiles company Massif Central and designed in collaboration with some of the most important visual artists working today. This pairing accentuates the legacy and continued relevance of Neumann’s groundbreaking approach to democratizing art through joy, creativity, and innovation.

Sarah Crowner’s Platform as Platform is an impressive artwork and a generous invitation. For this new exhibition, the artist has created her largest tile installation to date, a site-specific structure that stretches a span of more than 200 feet. Fabricated from custom-made terracotta tiles created in Guadalajara, Mexico, the floor-based work echoes the accumulative repetition of the building’s historic brick masonry, while the tiles’ colorful, glossy glaze and wavy design form a vast, dynamic ground that seems to extend into the horizon.

Crowner welcomes viewers to stand on, walk across, or even dance around the light-refracting composition, encouraging an experience that shifts our relationship to painting. Crowner’s work also functions as a foundation for a group of stretched drop cloths sourced from the SCAD fibers department’s screen-printing lab, displaying the accumulated layers from years of use by students and faculty. These collaborative canvases transform a potentially overlooked surface into something laden with meaning and aesthetic merit, evoking the reframed viewpoint that her installation offers. An inclusive, expansive gesture, Platform as Platform enjoins us to reconsider how we see the world.

Diedrick Brackens creates woven tapestries that blend a cosmic array of allegories, historical narratives, and autobiographical memories into compelling forms. In The Shape of Survival, Brackens brings his work into intimate dialogue with the American South, drawing on the region’s history of quilting and influences from myriad historic artists, most notably Aaron Douglas. Brackens’ use of hand-dyed cotton acknowledges the weighty legacy of this material, honoring its past while transmuting it into lyrical, awe-inspiring artworks.

The Shape of Survival takes on additional resonance in the museum’s Walter and Linda Evans Center for African American Studies within a structure that originally served as a Central of Georgia Railway depot where cotton and other commodities produced by enslaved Black labor were transported and stored. Yet the poetic and often ecstatic gestures of Brackens’ figures offer a sense of joy and revelry, expressing a powerful engagement with the richness of both African American cultural inheritance and queer identity. Together, these works propose conversations across the centuries on the power of art and its potential for transformation and growth.

Feb. 24 - July 7, 2025

SCAD deFINE ART honoree Zanele Muholi is a boundary-pushing artist esteemed for their work exploring notions of Black identity, community, and advocacy. A self-described visual activist, Muholi prioritizes the depiction of marginalized people from queer communities in both their home country of South Africa and around the globe. Through striking photographs, film, and sculpture, the artist honors the complex lived experiences of Black individuals, underscoring the vital need for visibility and agency.

Muholi’s exhibition includes several landmark bodies of work including Somnyama Ngonyama, translated from Zulu as Hail the Dark Lioness, an ongoing series of self-portraits that cast the artist as the central figure in sumptuous black-and-white images. In these staged confrontations, Muholi dons everyday items like clothespins, rugs, and plastic bags, which transform through unexpected arrangements, reflecting both personal and collective narratives of race and body politics.

The exhibition also features selections from Brave Beauties, highlighting trans women and nonbinary people in empowered poses, and Faces and Phases, a series of portraits that respond to the violence and discrimination faced by Black lesbians in South Africa. A never-before-seen group of self-portraits continues the artist’s Somnyama Ngonyama series in lightbox format. Through these works, Muholi reenvisions Black queer representation and challenges pervasive stereotypes, offering an empathetic and emboldened perspective of the human condition.

Feb. 24 - July 6, 2025

Red. Yellow. Blue. For centuries, this trio has impacted artistic practice and culture on a global scale. Collectively known as primary colors, they serve as the foundation of color theory in art. Defined by a set of colors that, when mixed, form the basis of all other colors, primary colors are the building blocks of the color spectrum. This bold triad can evoke emotion, convey messages, and influence our perceptions of the world, and it presents endless possibilities for creativity and expression. Its distinctiveness has inspired renowned artists like Pablo Picasso and Piet Mondrian, and even entire art movements, like De Stijl and Pop Art.

Drawn from Telfair Museums’ permanent collection, Primary: Artists Working in Red, Yellow, and Blue explores how artists have utilized primary colors in adventurous ways to elicit brilliant experiences. Featuring works by Roy Lichtenstein, Ellsworth Kelly, and Joan Miró, these energetic and dynamic compositions introduce viewers to the expansive possibilities of a simple palette.

Tideland is an exhibition of black and white photographs by Savannah-based photographer Parker Stewart (b. 1992). Taken between 2020 and 2024, these evocative photographs document the coast of Georgia by transporting the viewer into the visceral and primordial atmosphere of the barrier islands and inland waterways. The photographs show how the air hangs heavy on this ancient coastline, a place where the sea and the land entwine in an eternal embrace. Fog shrouded marshscapes, summer thunderstorms, dockhouses held up by toothpick pilings and details of old wooden shrimping trawlers are just some of the moments recorded by Stewart. These photographs depict a landscape of quiet grandeur, a place where the past whispers from the trees and the future is constantly being written on the tides.

This exhibition is part of the #art912 initiative, a platform dedicated to raising the visibility and vitality of artists living and working in Savannah. Tideland is organized by Telfair Museums and curated by Erin Dunn, curator of modern and contemporary art. 

Parker Stewart is a photographer based in Savannah, Georgia. A native of North Carolina, Stewart arrived in Savannah in 2011 to study photography at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Stewart’s work is focused on the notion of Place, and he uses photography as a tool to record the moments and scenes that move him the most. Currently Stewart is making photographs of the landscape and culture of the wild Georgia coastline and the rural Savannah River Basin. As well as working on extensive bodies of work in Coastal Maine, Western North Carolina, the Oregon Coast, and the Mojave Desert.

Beyond Sight, a multisensory exhibition highlighting accessibility in art, is back for its second iteration!  Join us Friday, April 11 from 6:00-8:00pm for the opening reception of this incredible exhibition featuring local artists from diverse backgrounds. Free and open to the public, light refreshments provided.

Contributing Artists: Autumn Gary, Christopher Nitsche, Joshua Alexander, Lois Harvey, Maggie Garner

Curated by Visual Arts Specialist Antonia B. Larkin. Beyond Sight will be on display in our gallery until Friday, May 30. Always free and open to the public.

Opening Reception: Friday, April 11th, 6 - 8PM

In Reflection: Contemporary Art and Ourselves is a long-term evolving installation of Telfair Museums’ modern and contemporary collection featuring paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, sculptures, textiles, and mixed and time-based media from 1945 to the present day. In addition to the expansive historical context and aesthetics, the wide variety of artworks on view encourages us to consider the artist’s role in mirroring individual and collective experiences and identities through these objects. These reflections are broadly explored as personal, social, and cultural themes. The PERSONAL delves into the self, offering insight into the feelings and emotions invoked through the work. The SOCIAL looks critically at the world, tackling of-the-moment topics such as climate change, globalization, social activism, and politics. The CULTURAL takes a big picture view, grappling with history, religion, language, heritage, legacy, and land that are central to cultural customs and traditions.

The exhibition also features select loans of provocative artworks by cutting-edge contemporary artists in the United States and beyond. These additions remind us that art is never static but continues to personally, socially, and culturally respond to the current moment. Offering another point of view, audio clips by artists, art professionals, and community members react to select works and encourage multiple interpretations. As we navigate the exhibition and learn about the works, we can ponder our own perspectives, unveiling a deeper understanding of ourselves and our relationships with the world around us.

Art has the power to expose, to connect, and ultimately to heal. In her upcoming exhibition, The Art of Healing: A retrospective of six years in Richmond Hill, Antoine de Villiers presents more than just a body of work, she offers a profound window into the emotional terrain of belonging, resilience, and transformation.

On view 2025 May 1-July 18 at Photopoint Gallery

Opening reception & Artist Talk
for women… 2025 May 8 / 6-8 pm

Photopoint Gallery’s first annual, juried group exhibition call for entries is officially open!

Welcome to the beginning of what we hope will be a new tradition. ‘Far Away’ marks the launch of our first annual, juried group exhibition - a thoughtfully curated show designed to remain on view for an extended period of time, both in the Gallery space and a dedicated online viewing room. Each year we will gather a new collection of local and regional artists, and their voices around a different theme.

The 2025 theme invites artists to explore the concept of distance, mystery, fantasy, escape - whether physical, emotional, cultural or imagined. This group show seeks work that evokes a sense of longing, adventure, attachment, presence, displacement, mood or wonder capturing what it means to be far away from home, time or reality.

From landscapes of distant places to abstract interpretations of separation, space and connection, ’Far Away’ encourages a broad exploration across all artistic mediums.

Entry deadline is July 11.