Vanessa Briscoe Hay on Dream of John Seawright
Well, it's a very small piece. When I started painting again, I'd been having very vivid dreams at intervals for years. And after John Seawright passed, I had a dream pretty shortly afterward that I was walking along a path through the woods and I came to a clearing onto the right that was a federal-style house that was glowing from within. There was a party going on. And I saw these people talking who were nicely dressed- professional looking. I looked over there and I was really surprised to see John Seawright, because I knew he had passed. And he saw me. He walked over to me and he sat on the other side of the wall. I was just astounded. He said, "You've got to stop worrying about me. I'm fine.”
Tonight by Sam Seawright
Tonight sleep would be punishment – name your crime:
The moon high at the end of every street,
A map turned inside out around our feet.
The language where your name and my name rhyme
Translates these streets as streams;
The green light, spotted silver light
Calls the streets up like moths; tonight
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Karen Allison on the Virus Hunter
I started taking photos of him while we were hiking from behind. They just would kind of come up when we would see a location that was really pretty. And then we got to where we were planning photo shoots, like coming up with ideas. There are these train tracks that run through Athens that are no longer in service. We thought wouldn't it be kind of cool? Mike has this cloak that he is wearing and he has a hat collection. We thought, let's take this costume and go to the train tracks and just try taking some photos. This also shows sometimes you have an idea of a photo shoot and you go do it, and you're not happy with it.
We took a bunch of photos and we didn't like any of them. So we're like, "Well, we'll just come back and try again." This is Mike walking back to the car. I just kind of had an idea. I thought what if I crouched down and put the camera on the train track and shoot up while he's walking away? I didn't even really focus it. I didn't set levels. I was just sort of doing a test shot thinking maybe we'll come back and do this later. And he was wondering where I was, I captured him looking back at me.
THE TASK THAT IS THE TOIL
curated by John Lee Matney
August 14, 2021 - November 7, 2021
The Linda Matney Gallery, The Task that is the Toil, reflects the gallery’s eclectic offerings, Southern roots, and ambitious scope. Referencing a quotation from Virgil’s Aeneid which the curator came across in a work by Carl Jung about “emerging from a nightmare, dream, or the unconscious,” the intertextual title suggests multivalent connections and layers of meaning found in a wide variety of media and modes. Painted, photographic, and sculptural works, both naturalistic and abstract, from more than twenty artists provide a range of emotions and responses to the current moment. However, while the theme unavoidably alludes to the impact of the global pandemic, the exhibition is not so literal. Instead, together, these works, some recent but many made pre-Covid, speak to the times while reflecting more personal and universal reflections of the human condition. The ability to speak to and transcend the current moment is the strength of the exhibition, the individual works, and the gallery’s larger mission
