Located next to Eyedrum, one of Atlanta’s premier interdisciplinary gallery spaces, Mattress Factory Studios is a creative refuge where local artists toil away in private producing the works seen at galleries throughout Atlanta.
Artists usually prefer to create their work away from the public eye until a piece is ready for display at a gallery or museum, but during its Spring Open Studios event Saturday, Mattress Factory artists will open their doors to everyone.
It’s a rare opportunity for art lovers to peer behind the curtain of the creative process and see how local artists make their art. The event will feature various artistic media including painting, photography, sculpture, and performance/installation art.
Local artist Allison Shockley is one of the artists participating in this year’s Spring Open Studios.
Shockley is a multimedia artist who has shown nationally as well as here in Atlanta at Mason Murer Gallery and the Lowe Gallery, among others. This year, Shockley will have her current body of abstract encaustic paintings on display.
Shockley’s abstractions represent a new way of viewing and thinking about abstract art in general.
Shockley’s abstract images are constructed from this contemporary geometric vocabulary and challenge the viewer to learn to read abstract images in a new and more complex way.
For anyone that thinks they understand abstract art and are bored with it, Shockley’s demanding work pushes the medium to new places.
> www.artrelish.com/2009/05/13/mattress-factory-open-studios-preview/
> Art Relish (www.artrelish.com/), a site covering Atlanta visual arts, will be posting live updates from Saturday’s Mattress Factory Spring Open Studios on Twitter (http:// twitter.com/artrelish). It will also post video interviews from the event the following day.
About the authors Steve Aishman teaches photography at Savannah College of Art and Design - Atlanta. Jason Parker is the social media manager for SCAD-Atlanta. They can be reached at saishman@scad.edu and jmp@jasonmparker.com.
Spring Open Studios
Noon-10 p.m. Saturday . Free. 300 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. S.E. 404-659-7988. www.myspace.com/mattressfactorystudios. Parking will be available at Eyedrum, located in the Mattress Factory complex.
