New Installment Added to Jane and Harry Willson Sculpture Garden

"Tide" in the sculpture garden

From Michelangelo’s David to Giacometti’s “Walking Man I,” sculpture has long paved the way for explorations of art and the human form in distinctive ways. The newest permanent installation at the Georgia Museum of Art is no exception.

“Tide” is an androgynous, life-sized, cast-iron sculpture standing right outside the entrance to the museum’s Jane and Harry Willson Sculpture Garden. Standing nearly six feet tall and with a glass strip inlay in its left arm, the sculpture possesses no distinguishable features other than a pair of lips and a nose.   

Steinunn Þórarinsdóttir (pronounced Stay-nun Thorens-daughter) is a sculptor from Reykjavik, Iceland, who has been exhibiting her art around the world for 38 years. Þórarinsdóttir studied sculpture from 1974 to 1980 in England and Italy. She previously exhibited her sculptures at the museum in 2011 during the inauguration of the sculpture garden in a yearlong exhibition titled “Horizons.” Þórarinsdóttir came to the museum in March of 2011 to discuss her installation.

Þórarinsdóttir says of her choice to become a sculptor, “I guess partly it was due to the fact that I come from a country that is in constant flux and formation. . . . When I started to work with sculpture it just felt like I had found my home. I was suddenly in control and connected. I could transfer my thoughts and feelings into something real and physical.”

The sculpture garden exhibits only works by woman artists, with “Tide” taking the second permanent position in the garden. The other sculpture occupying the garden is “Terra Verte #1” by Patricia Leighton, a Scottish artist.

Þórarinsdóttir is particularly thrilled about her sculpture being placed in the garden, emphasizing, “The fact that the Jane and Harry Willson Sculpture Garden focuses only on female sculptors makes it absolutely unique. Especially considering that sculpture was for a long time thought to be a section of the visual arts that was for men only!”

The sculpture was purchased with a gift from patron Judith Ellis in honor of docent Carol Dolson. Ellis has volunteered and supported the museum, served on the board for the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art and created the Judith A. Ellis Endowment for Education. Carol Dolson is an award-winning children’s book author who graduated from UGA and lives in Athens, Georgia.

--

Stephanie Motter

Communications Intern

ATHICA: Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, Inc. presents “Southern”

Sam Seawright, The Poet's House (Moth), 2001

ATHICA is showing its 44th exhibition, “Southern,” beginning this Saturday, Jan. 21, and running through Sunday, March 4. The exhibition features many new works exploring the emotional depth and aesthetic diversity of nine artists across four generations.

Through photography, video and sculpture, the artists present a visually rich installation that tests the boundaries between art and religion, aesthetic and documentary practice and folk and fine art.

Exhibition highlights include documentary photographs of the interior and exterior grounds of the St. Paul Spiritual Holy Temple in Memphis, Tenn.; a multimedia work addressing the relationship between the Hope Scholarship and the Georgia Lottery; and a controversial painting referencing the Ku Klux Klan that was once removed from a faculty exhibition at Gainesville College by its president.

Participating artists are Stanley Bermudez; Drék Davis; Hope Hilton; Ted Kuhn; Michael Lachowski; Judy Rushin; Sam Seawright; John Seawright; Steven Thompson; and James Perry Walker and the family of Washington Harris of the Saint Paul Spiritual Holy Temple.

The exhibition’s opening reception will be held on Saturday, Jan. 21, from 7 to 9 p.m. The curator and assistant curator of “Southern” are Judith McWillie and Lauren Williamson.

A Decade of RxArt

RxArt, a nonprofit organization that puts fine art in health care facilities, is celebrating its 10-year anniversary with a gala tonight in New York. The event will include a cocktail party, a contemporary art auction and music by guest DJs.

The mission of RxArt is “to improve otherwise sterile environments through contemporary art, promote healing, and inspire hope in patients, families, and staff.” RxArt’s projects include Jeff Koons’ CT Scanner at Advocate Hope Children’s Hospital in Oak Lawn, Ill., and an installation of lithographs by Ed Baynard leading to the operating room at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York.

In addition to art installations, RxArt has published two volumes of its coloring book, “Between the Lines: A Coloring Book of Drawings by Contemporary Artists,” which is given to children in the hospitals that have RxArt projects.

Click here to see photos on RxArt's Flickr page and here to read an interview with Diane Brown, the president and founder of the organization.