Dahlonega Campus Exhibitions

Spring 2025

Rachel Watson: If You Don’t Act Like Somebody 

January 13 – March 21, 2025 

Artist Talk: February 19, 11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.

This body of work explores a well-known, defunct mental institution, in Milledgeville, Georgia, Central State Hospital (1842-2010). Watson’s extensive research of this institution, primarily conducted at the Special Collections Library and the Georgia Archives where she read primary resources, informed what has become a complex and multifaceted relationship to this place. Rachel mindfully and constantly considers those who lived here while walking the grounds and reviewing documents. The work aims to document this site before it is torn down and to individualize the patients left here by friends and family. Those patients whose names became supplanted by numbers, to give back their identities, and let them be properly remembered.

BFA Capstone Exhibition 

April 7 – April 18 

Reception: Wednesday, April 9, 5:30 – 7 p.m. 

Summer/Fall Semester 2024

As the World Turns: 2024 Juried Alum Exhibition

July 30 - September 13, 2024
Reception: Wednesday, September 11, 5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

The second annual juried alum exhibition is inspired by the drama and enduring narratives of the classic soap opera "As the World Turns." This exhibition seeks to showcase art that embraces kitsch, melodrama, and an intense theatricality reflective of the show’s style. Additionally, the theme explores the broader human condition and our relentless advance through daily life amidst global chaos - war, pandemics, politics, and beyond. The exhibition has been curated by 2014 UNG graduate, Brittany Fanning.

Southern Printmaking Biennale Retrospective

Since 2004, the Southern Printmaking Biennale has been a staple of the Bob Owens Art Gallery exhibition schedule. Curated by Michael Marling de Cuellar, this juried exhibition has drawn printmakers from around the country and each best in show winner was given a solo exhibition in the intervening years. In 2024, we celebrate the end of this remarkable series of exhibitions with a retrospective featuring the work of the 10 best in show winners.

Fall 2024 Dahlonega BFA Capstone Exhibition

Monday, November 4 - Friday, November 15, 2024
Reception: Wednesday, November 6, 2024 from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Spring Semester 2024

Recover: Abstraction from the Permanent Collection of the University of North Georgia

January 10 - 31, 2024

On display are selections from the Permanent Collection of the University of North Georgia that celebrate forms of abstraction. This exhibition includes works from the James and Francis Mathis Collection, paintings by former UNG art students and members of the  North Georgia arts community.

Isabell Daniel: Lessons in Survival

February 5 - March 7, 2024 

Join us for an artist talk in the Hoag Auditorium, February 21, noon - 1:30 p.m.

How do we find hope in the midst of chaos? How do we find the strength to love in the midst of hate? How do we experience joy when faced with so much sorrow? These are the questions that drive my current work. 2020 marked the hardest year of my life, as I suffered the tragic suicide of 2 dear friends against the backdrop of my country continuing to be torn apart by hateful and divisive politics, a pandemic ravaging the world, and the global climate crisis accelerating destruction and suffering around the world. I mourned seeing this chaos driving us all further apart, as I recognized that what we really needed was to come together. Since that time, community and connection, both with each other as well as with the natural world, have become recurring themes in my work. I realize how interdependent all of life on this planet is, and to survive we need to take care of each other. Through my work, I want to celebrate the richness and strength of the community of diverse individuals we are, as well as the wisdom of the natural world. This work began as a way for me to heal myself, but I offer it outward that others may draw hope from it as well. 

Dahlonega BFA Senior Capstone 

Artists: Chloie Adams, Audrey Buchans, Sarah Carmichael, Gracen Debruyn, Trent Dennison, Jonathan Elder, Caitlin Fitch, Krystina Littleton, Jenny Morris, Addison Sedergren, Gracie Weems, Krista Willey

April 11 - 13, 2024
Thursday, April 11, 2024, 5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

Hal B. Rhodes III Student Exhibition

April 17 – June 28, 2024
Reception and Awards ceremony April 26, 5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

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

Fall Semester 2023

Douglas Bosley: Auxon

August 21 – September 20, 2023
Artist Talk and Reception: September 14, 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Douglas Bosley is the 2022 Best in Show winner from the tenth edition of the Southern Printmaking Biennial. His prints carry implicit but assertive political undertones - they question our ideas of technological progress and the future of the Earth’s species. His artwork imagines a future version of earth where the familiar environment has been eclipsed by engineered ecosystems and mechanical creations that have begun to interpret and interact with their environment in novel ways. Collectively, the work posits an alternate history and future timeline with roots in the physical laws and scientific discourse. It implies that the course of events is other than inevitable, and leaves open the possibility to consider alterity, and meaningful change.

Department of Visual Arts Faculty Biennial

September 26 – October 27, 2023
Reception: Friday, October 27, Noon - 1:00 p.m.

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." - Pablo Picasso

This edition of the UNG Visual Arts Faculty Biennial will give everyone a glimpse of the child artist living inside our faculty. The professors will share their current work alongside examples of their earlies artistic expressions from childhood.

BFA Capstone

"integral"
Fall 2023 BFA Student Senior Exhibition

November 6 - December 1, 2023
Reception: Thursday, November 9, 5:30 - 6:30 p.m.
Bob Owens Art Gallery

Spring Semester 2023

Carla Contreras: Drift: Works Inspired by the Chattahoochee River Corridor

January 9 – February 17

Artist Talk, February 17 at noon

Contreras’s work deals with place and she is interested in reflecting on the human condition through contemplative practices in nature. Living by the Chattahoochee River since 2020 has informed her artwork in form and content. The different ecosystems, their mechanisms, and cycles. Their resilience, their transformative processes, their pace. The speed and the quietness. What remains, what mutates, what persists. Existence is in constant transformation, yet the core of things remains persistently. These abstract mixed media works on paper and canvas become a biomorphic visual assemblage of sensorial information gathered from the river and forest that she currently explores.

Alex Christopher Williams: what color is the air you breathe 

February 27 – March 31

Artist talk and Reception: March 8, noon to 1:30 p.m.

Alex Christopher Williams is a photographer and runs Minor League, an artist-run project space in Atlanta. His work explores race, masculinity and history.

Hal B. Rhodes III Student Exhibition

April 2 - 28, 2023

Reception and Awards Ceremony: April 14 at 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. 

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

Fall Semester 2022

The Southern Printmaking Biennale X

August 22 – September 23

Reception: September 22, 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

The tenth edition of the Southern Printmaking Biennial will open in August. This juried exhibition draws printmakers from around the country. This year’s best in show award winner, Douglas Bosley, will have a solo show in the 2023 – 2024 academic year.

Keith Smith - Tools of Intention

October 3 - October 29

Please join us for a lunch time artist talk and reception in Hoag Auditorium, October 21, 12:30 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Keith Smith is a figurative sculptor working primarily in ceramics and cast metal with a long-standing commitment to making and teaching art. He teaches at Kennesaw State University.

Jackson Markovic: Faith

November 14 - December 9

Join us for an artist talk and reception: Monday, December 5, 2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Jackson Markovik will show work from his ongoing series of quilts modeled after scratch-off lottery tickets found on downtown Atlanta’s sidewalks and in its corner shops. He uses the lottery ticket as a symbol, discarded and ripped apart as the future relic of a system that has not yet fallen. The images also represent a personal conflict as the lottery directly funds his tuition through a state scholarship. He says, “In imagining the ephemeral as an object of sentiment, we are asked to reflect on the functions that deny and uplift our privileges.”

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.

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. 

Summer/Fall Semester 2024

As the World Turns: 2024 Juried Alum Exhibition

July 30 - September 13, 2024
Reception: Wednesday, September 11, 5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

The second annual juried alum exhibition is inspired by the drama and enduring narratives of the classic soap opera "As the World Turns." This exhibition seeks to showcase art that embraces kitsch, melodrama, and an intense theatricality reflective of the show’s style. Additionally, the theme explores the broader human condition and our relentless advance through daily life amidst global chaos - war, pandemics, politics, and beyond. The exhibition has been curated by 2014 UNG graduate, Brittany Fanning.

Southern Printmaking Biennale Retrospective

Since 2004, the Southern Printmaking Biennale has been a staple of the Bob Owens Art Gallery exhibition schedule. Curated by Michael Marling de Cuellar, this juried exhibition has drawn printmakers from around the country and each best in show winner was given a solo exhibition in the intervening years. In 2024, we celebrate the end of this remarkable series of exhibitions with a retrospective featuring the work of the 10 best in show winners.

Fall 2024 Dahlonega BFA Capstone Exhibition

Monday, November 4 - Friday, November 15, 2024
Reception: Wednesday, November 6, 2024 from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.