This year’s ‘Emerging Artists’ display debuts at the Macon Museum of Arts and Sciences
Image: Marianna Bacallao
The Emerging Artists display at the Macon Museum of Art and Sciences.
February 22, 2017
The Macon Museum of Arts and Sciences unveiled its newest art exhibition Feb. 3, a collection of works aptly called “Emerging Artists.” It is the museum’s fifth showcase of its kind.
This new installment houses over 40 art pieces from seven artists across the southeastern United States. From paintings and sculptures, to mixed media and abstract art, this display sets out to show the true breadth of southern art.
There is a meld of different artistic and political statements. Jerry Smith’s paintings and mixed media installations, in particular, stand out against the white backdrop of the museum.
Smith’s mixed media art is made from recycled trash. There are the tiny faces of C-3PO and other beloved pop culture icons, all assembled in a mosaic of a bald man with thin-rimmed glasses. Resting on his forehead is a wooden sign with the vintage image of a woman telling someone, presumably her hypothetical children, “Eat your peas! There are children starving in Africa…”
Sharing the top corner with her is a rocking chair, a disembodied foot, a rooster, and the personal account of the artist’s descent into madness as he has a “nightly rodent bedtime story.” Below them is the message: Whether Vain.
It seems a hodge-podge of strange and disconcerting images, like the visual equivalent of two Cracker Barrel ads played on top of each other. It makes something unfamiliar out of the familiar.
It clearly has an anti-consumerist message with some relation to the humanitarian efforts in Ethiopia, but there are so many threads of it that don’t connect, the artist fails to make any strong point.
Smith’s painting is a different beast. In an interesting, Smith depicts Jesus as a white man, holding a rifle, and standing in a field, flanked by cows and oil rigs — a visual representation of a quote by former President Barack Obama, included with the work:
“It’s not surprising — then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” Obama said of the hard-pressed rural population when running for president in 2008.
“So it’s not surprising they get bitter, cling to guns or religion,” is how Smith chooses to shorten that quote. At the bottom of the painting he writes “CLING.”
Not everything in the exhibit carries such strong political sentiments, but Smith’s art pieces take up a lot of space, and a lot ideas.
Marianna Bacallao is a senior Journalism and English double-major. She recently completed an internship with Georgia Public Broadcasting, where her work...
The Cluster’s comments section is meant to be a place for respectful conversation and reflection on issues and events affecting students at Mercer University. Comments are moderated by the student staff of The Cluster to ensure that those made visible on the website reflect these standards. Harassment, hate, spam and personal attacks on staff members will not be approved. This does not mean that critical comments will be rejected. We welcome diverse perspectives on our reporting and on students’ experiences at Mercer University. Comments will not be approved unless a valid name and email address are submitted. Please also note that our comment moderation system logs IP addresses associated with every comment submitted.
If you want a picture to show with your comment, go get a gravatar.