whitespace gallery
Atlanta Art Week Event:
Four New Exhibitions + Performance by Neill Prewitt: 'In the Land of Plenty' by Sarah Emerson in whitespace, 'DEAL' by Mark Wentzel in whitespec, and 'into the well' by Zipporah Camille Thompson in shedspace | Downtown
Whitespace Gallery
Neill Prewitt Performance #1 - Tuesday, October 1 at 7pm
Neill Prewitt Performance #2 / Atlanta Art Week Closing Event
Sunday, October 6 at 7pm
About Event:
We are pleased to host an artist talk with exhibiting artist, Sarah Emerson. As well as a two-part performance by Neill Prewitt.
Sarah Emerson will host an artist talk about her fourth solo exhibition with whitespace gallery, 'In the Land of Plenty', featuring a new series of paintings. "I combine found imagery and scenes from actual landscapes to create my abstract compositions. In my work, I distort the physical laws that govern the real world because concepts like gravity, inertia, and locality do not govern our emotional perspective of the world. Although terror and tranquility never truly exist simultaneously in the physical, the two emotions certainly reside concurrently in our memories. As it is presented, painting can flatten time, space, and memory in pictures, allowing room for a reconciliation of many states of being flattened into one picture plane. I have no answers to the complex problems of today’s world, but with my work, I make a visual appeal to be empathetic and hopeful in tumultuous times, and I resist my own personal urge to look away from the chaos of the now. In the Land of Plenty refers to the abundance of possibility and purpose to do good but my pictures tell the story of a horizon in transition, continually reforming broken shapes into a new and uncertain landscape.”
Neill Prewitt will debut a new rock opera, 'Emotional Real Estate', at Whitespace during Atlanta Art Week. This is Prewitt’s third rock opera. Bringing together music, performance, and video, Prewitt orchestrates live looping and processing to create the opera’s music and mise en scene, a technique inspired by his encounters with film shoots he’s stumbled upon in downtown Atlanta. Surreal and exaggeratedly dramatic, it is the story of an artist trying to buy a house in Atlanta today.
Additionally, Mark Wentzel will present 'DEAL' a site-specific exhibition in whitespec. Capturing the private and the collective spirit of the contemporary moment. "Culture by definition as an act or process that requires a certain amount of time to become established, but with the societal appetite for immediacy sustained cultural development is being challenged. In light of this, I see these visual events not as cultural contributions, but rather cultureless occurrences. Not as timeless artifacts–in the sense that they have transcended history to become universal–but extracultural, non-historical, momentary insertions that function mechanically and objectively to redirect the flow of cognitive energy. I have been persistent in my attempts to design and craft visual structures with the appropriate physics to reorient thought patterns, not intent to support, challenge, or inspire but to simply reposition.”
Lastly, Zipporah Camille Thompson introduces 'into the well' in shedspace. “Deep into the land of mystery and uncertainty, exists an underworld filled with relics. Ancient pillars of the past stand tall and proud, and arising from the depths echoes of what once was emerge. New aqueous futures arise through portals of hope and renewal. Power shifts; it transforms and rises in miraculous ways. Salt and sea sustains us and reminds us to forever draw upon source energy and to turn within, triumphing over violent histories and contemporaries wrought with darkness.”
Exhibition Duration: Sep 28, 2024 - Nov 23, 2024
About Artist:
Sarah Emerson is an artist based in Atlanta, Georgia. Her paintings and installations present viewers with highly stylized versions of nature that combine geometric patterns and mythic archetypes to examine contemporary landscape. Emerson graduated from the Atlanta College of Art in 1998 and she completed her Masters Degree at Goldsmiths College, London in 2000. She has exhibited her work in galleries throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe, including White Columns, New York, Cosmic Gallery (Cargnel Bugada), Paris, the Musee de la Civilisation, Quebec, Canada, Mirus Gallery, San Francisco, Ca., the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, Fl. and the High Museum in Atlanta, GA. Her work has been published in Noplaceness: Art in a Post Urban Landscape, Stickers Deluxe: From Punk Rock to Contemporary Art, and New American Paintings in 2012, 2007, and 2003. In 2014 she was awarded the 2015 MOCA GA Working Artist Project Grant selected by Siri Engberg, Senior Curator of Visual Arts at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Emerson was the 2014/15 Kirk Visiting Artist Fellow at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, GA. She recently completed two public mural commissions for the city of Wilson, North Carolina and for the Mayors Office of Cultural Affairs in Atlanta, GA. She currently teaches at Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA.
Mark Wentzel (b. 1970) is a visual artist from Detroit, Michigan, based in Atlanta, Georgia since 2008. He has been exhibiting professionally since 2005 when his sculpture “XLounge" was shown at Project 4 Gallery in Washington, DC, and later at ScopeNY, ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and as a series at the CDC Museum in Atlanta. Mark had his first solo exhibition at the Atlanta Contemporary Art in 2009, where he suspended a 1965 Ford Mustang from the ceiling during the peak of the 2008 auto industry crisis. His work has been featured in notable events such as the 2018 Venice Architectural Biennale, the V&A Museum during London Design Week, The Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, Art + Space at the Herman Miller National Design Center, and Atlanta’s Flux Projects. His current practice focuses on site-responsive installations using play objects, sports equipment, automotive forms, and other domestic ephemera. His playful forms, often arranged into "incidents" caught in mid-action, explore deeper themes of judgment, power, masculinity, and self-identity.
Zipporah Camille Thompson is a ceramist, weaver, sculptor, and activist based in Atlanta, Georgia-land of the Muskogee. A native Carolinian, Thompson explores alchemical transformations through clay + textiles, examining marginalized bodies and eliciting social change through her work. Sculpted shapeshifters and hybrid landscapes investigate otherness.
She received her MFA from the University of Georgia and her BFA from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Her work has been featured in numerous publications and shown in spaces, nationally and internationally. Zipporah Camille Thompson is the 2024 Georgia State Fellow for Visual Arts, a 2021 MOCA GA Working Artist Project Fellow, a 2020 Artadia Atlanta Awardee, a Watershed Zenobia Scholarship Award grantee, an NCECA Multicultural Fellow, and an Idea Capital Travel Grant recipient. Thompson is represented by Whitespace Gallery in Atlanta, GA. She is a history addict, roller-skater, and lover of unicorns, zombies, the moon, tarot and all things fantasy.
Neill Prewitt works in video, sound and music, performance, and installation. He has performed rock operas and participatory sound art events at sites nationally including Perfect Lovers in Durham NC, Amos Eno Gallery in Brooklyn NY, South River Arts in Atlanta GA, Kings in Raleigh NC, the OBX Art Truck in Elizabeth City NC, and Silent Barn in Brooklyn NY. Neill has produced videos and installations that have been exhibited nationally at Lump in Raleigh NC, Whitespace in Atlanta GA, Goodall Gallery at Columbia College, the University of Notre Dame AAHD Gallery, 621 Gallery in Tallahassee FL, and Freedman Gallery at Albright College. His band Neill Weyman released an album in 2022. With the collective Yuxtapongo, Neill has produced art for public spaces including a public access TV show that ran for four years, and installations that have been shown at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University and CAM in Raleigh NC. Neill is currently Senior Lecturer and Foundations Coordinator at Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA
About Organization:
Whitespace Gallery, founded in 2002 by Susan Bridges, emerged from the dynamic energy of Atlanta's art scene. Initially, it took shape through pop-up exhibitions in unconventional venues, showcasing the work of local artists and orchestrating a unique fusion of art and space. The culmination of this experimental phase occurred in a former cabinet maker's shop at the old Mattress Factory on Martin Luther King Drive, where Bridges collaborated with artist Alex P. White. The entirely spray-painted white venue harmonized with White's surname, giving birth to the name "Whitespace."
This serendipitous beginning laid the foundation for Whitespace's evolution into a permanent gallery space two years later. Today, it is a cornerstone of the Atlanta arts community, representing over 35 artists across various disciplines. Whitespace's commitment to fostering artistic exploration is evident in its main gallery and two additional project spaces dedicated to nurturing emerging talent.
Under Susan Bridges' stewardship, Whitespace has become synonymous with artistic innovation and inquiry. Through countless exhibitions spanning diverse mediums, the gallery invites viewers to engage in dialogue and introspection. Each artwork serves as a portal to explore the intricacies of human existence, prompting reflection on collective identity and individual experiences. As a respected institution within Atlanta's cultural landscape, Whitespace continues to inspire audiences, offering fresh perspectives on the world and inviting viewers to embrace new ways of seeing and understanding.
https://whitespace814.com | @whitespace814
Hours of Operation:
Monday: CLOSED
Tuesday: CLOSED
Wednesday: 11 AM - 5 PM
Thursday: 11 AM - 5 PM
Friday: 11 AM - 5 PM
Saturday: 11 AM - 5 PM
Sunday: 11 AM - 5 PM