Carla will give guests an intimate look at our current exhibition Outside In, featuring Atlanta-based artists William Downs, Zipporah Joel, Michi Meko, Vek Neal, Chilly-O and Codi Maddox, Q&A to follow.

Outside In, a large-scale presentation of paintings, photographs, and works on paper by five Atlanta-based, Black visual artists, explores how the onset of the pandemic forced upon them a sudden shift in artistic practices, habits and social order.

The influential, fast-paced, community-driven art world of Atlanta was shuttered. Indoor isolation replaced front porch conversations. Fear and uncertainty took hold.

Battling this unknown landscape and an uncertain future, each artist in this exhibition seized the opportunity to move from an outward focus to one of deep internal examination and reflection, resulting in evolutions, both nuanced and radical, in their approach, processes, and creative mindsets. And while each body of work is distinctive in its own right, a multitude of common threads are woven throughout—those of freedom, spirituality, escape, introspection, mental health, loss, existentialism, humanity’s rawness and vulnerabilities—while portraying ideas around what it means to be a Black artist working during one of the most significant social and cultural reckonings of our time.

Outside In is on view until Saturday, April 23.

The Gathers (2021), William Downs, India ink on paper, 40 x 53