Dahlonega Campus Exhibitions

Bob Owens Art Gallery

The Bob Owens Art Gallery is located on the top floor of the Hoag Student Center, across from the Great Room. There are approximately six exhibitions annually, including the “Hal B. Rhodes Student Exhibition" celebrating the artistic excellence of the Department of Visual Arts students.

Upcoming and Current Exhibitions

Spring Semester 2022

Department of Visual Arts Faculty Biennial

January 17 – February 8

This Biennial allows the Department of Visual Arts to highlight recent work by the art faculty. Each campus has a remarkable array of talented people who are devoted to mentoring their students. In class and out, these teachers are also practicing artists whose work is featured in galleries, museums and venues around the country. During the Biennial, we celebrate the UNG faculty as professional artists by exhibiting their recent work here at UNG for the university community to enjoy.

Foundations: Bob Owens, Tommye Scanlin, Hank Margeson and Win Crannell

February 28 – March 22

This academic year, we are celebrating 50 years of visual arts at UNG. This exhibition features work by the four professors who laid the foundation for the Department of Visual Arts as it exists today.

In addition to being the first department head and ceramics professor, Robert “Bob” Owens was dedicated to establishing the reputation of North Georgia College (now UNG) as a leader in the field of art education. From 1972 to 1988, he was joined by Tommye Scanlin (McClure) and Win Crannell. These three professors established a curriculum in drawing, painting, printmaking and fiber arts. Photography was added in 1989 when Henry W. “Hank” Margeson joined the department.

This historic year is a time to reflect on a golden legacy of achievement and the tremendous growth the department has witnessed. This exhibition is an opportunity to celebrate those who built the foundation for Visual Arts at UNG.

Hal B. Rhodes III Student Exhibition

April 4 - 26

This annual juried exhibition and awards ceremony showcases the best work of UNG Visual Arts students.

Previous Exhibitions

Fall Semester 2021

Fools Like Us by Will Kurucz

August 30 – September 21
Artist Talk: Monday, September 20, 2 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
To join the artist talk and discussion via Zoom please contact Victoria.cooke@ung.edu.

Fools Like Us is a satirical and critical look into man’s corrosive behavior - and the effects of this behavior on the surrounding community - using the corrosive printmaking process of copper etching. Will Kurucz pulls from experiences and histories both personal and shared to create often-humorous imagery that aims to draw-in and confront his audience and create an environment that fosters growth through self-reflection and accountability.

Joe Kameen

October 20 - November 30
Artist Talk: Wednesday, November 17, 1 – 2:30
To join the artist talk and discussion via Zoom please contact Victoria.cooke@ung.edu.

Spring 2021

Leftovers: Photographs by Amber Eckersly

February 22 - March 19
Artist talk via Zoom. Details will be updated here when available. Contact Victoria.cooke@ung.edu for more information on the Zoom talk.

This series of work explores the fragmented nature of memory, investigates the dynamism of my grandma’s kitchen, and subverts nostalgia typically associated with the South. Each image in the series represents a particular memory, set of memories, or fragment of memories from my childhood of planting, growing, and picking food with my grandma as well as preserving it and cooking it with her. The ordering and decision making of what fragments go in which image is imprecise. The imprecision is a reflection of how memory operates - fragmented, mutable, and fleeting. The markings on the pots, remnants of food processes, and used kitchen tools, are a metaphor for the fragmented memories from which the photographs are created and function as proof of a life lived. This world represented, this life, is dynamic and has a depth far beyond the quaint nostalgia associated with the South. The tension created by removing these simple, vernacular objects from their context in her home and re-presenting them on a large scale in a formal, flat, and abstract manner not only declares that this specific world is worthy of consideration, but it also forms a space in which viewers can engage with this place in a new way, beyond sentimentality and nostalgia.

Hal B. Rhodes III Student Exhibition

March 30 - April 23
This annual juried exhibition and awards ceremony showcases the best work of UNG Visual Arts students.

Beautiful.खूबसूरत

Exhibition opened: January 19 - February 12, 2021
Artist talk via Zoom on February 10, 5:00 - 6:00 p.m. Contact Victoria.cooke@ung.edu for more information on the Zoom talk.

Beautiful is a collaborative exhibition featuring photography by Elizabeth Jones along with drawing and painting by artist Craig Hawkins. With portraiture in multiple media, the intent of this exhibition is to witness to remarkable beauty in the face of suffering. The work captures the faces of women in India who have suffered from painful burns.

2020

Joni Younkins-Herzog

Angel trumpets
Exhibition opened: November 5, 2020
Artist talk and reception: November 16, 12:00 p.m.

Angel Trumpets are infamous flowers with historical uses for vanity; opportunistic sedative qualities and effects as an antidote to airborne biological warfare-all of these functions overlap in my mind with seductive beauty. Alluring and mysterious, taking a nap underneath this lovely, flowering shrub led native peoples to discover their unusual properties.

I created the wall piece, Angel Trumpets as a complex metaphor for seeing the art world through the "eyes" of history with the old art magazines they are created from.

Paintings by Eleanor Aldrich

Exhibition opened:October 1, 2020
Artist talk and closing reception: October 26, 12:00 p.m.

I work with images where the human body and a grid naturally occur together, like a body pressing against a lawn chair or hammock. The images stem from memories of the poor rural town where I grew up. The figures are seen from the back and are often closely cropped; either unaware of the viewer, and therefore made vulnerable, or refusing the gaze of the viewer by turning away. At the same time, the figures are an extension of the viewer, inviting identification with the figure in relation to whatever else occupies the picture plane.