How far can someone speak out, especially about certain topics or implying certain ideas that would be seen as controversial or problematic? The Valdosta National of 2024 tries to implement the idea of allowing different artists to display their identity through their artworks. The artists presented were filtered and selected by the juror, Olivia Richardson, in collaboration with Mark T. Errol, the curator for Art Spoken. Art Spoken was designed to bring in in different artists of different races, ethnicities, and sexual orientation to light and into the spotlight to show who they are as people and show themselves through their work. The idea was solid, but the desired outcome was lacking. The effort was there, but it seemed too lackluster of what it means to show the artist’s identity and who they are to be recognized in honorable fashion.
Valdosta State University’s Dedo Maranville Gallery recently hosted their annual showing of “Valdosta National”, an exhibition of work submitted from artists all over the country regarding a similar topic. This year’s theme was due to the cancellation of 2024’s “Art Spoken”, and aimed to merge the two. “Art Spoken” was an event held across campus in different settings that highlighted BIPOC students and artists: emphasizing diversity and racial injustices within the exhibition. “Valdosta National: Art Spoken” had a variety of artists like Larry Sheffield, Seongmin Yoo, Paul C. Blake and others who were representative of BIPOC work. Regardless, as someone who was lucky enough to see one of the prior “Art Spoken” exhibits, I would argue that the “Valdosta National ” though lovely and entertaining, did not have the same impact as the previous “Art Spoken”.
What is the meaning of “Home”? Is it the house where we grew up in, the family we were born into, or perhaps the people we choose to surround ourselves with? These are questions Laney Havard, a Fine Arts major and senior at Valdosta State University, asks herself as she reflects on what the word means to her. She expresses these mixed emotions and feelings towards the idea of home through her artworks displayed in the 2023 Senior Exhibition. Havard’s multimedia pieces in the Dedo Maranville Gallery highlight her talents in multiple different mediums, and urges the viewer to ask themselves the question “What does home mean to me?”
“I’m not sure what my process is. I kinda just let whatever happens happen. I’m passionate about it because it’s basically a hat my life revolves around at this point.”
Lakota Merlot
Lakota Merlot is an artist hailing from East Coast from Virginia to Key West. They were a hobbyist artist, making paintings and writing short stories before they came to VSU. Across their career, they became less involved with the physical and more into the digital, shifting to more digital-based artwork. One thing that has remained consistent was their love of mental health and horror as subjects. Mental health as a subject has always been around but has become much more prominent as a subject in postmodernism. Horror is more rare because of how deep and visceral it can be, but Lakota takes its darker, grungier aspects and humanizes them in their work. One facet of their personal life has become a leading subject in their work: their transition.
Upon entering the exhibition, “Enchanted Forest Fire” by the artist, Raina Belleau, the viewers are immediately shown a big sign that bears a resemblance to common national park signs that typically indicates the rise in risk of a forest fire. The viewer might assume this will be another innocent exhibit that goes on about the dangers of forest fires or what-not. However, the second you pass the sign, you see the true distress of the exhibition.
“Black is…” is a rather loud exhibition. When walking into the Dedo Maranville Fine Arts Gallery at Valdosta State University, one is confronted with works by Traci Mims and Samuel Dunson. Each piece on its own holds a conversation with the viewer, if they will listen, but when all the pieces are looked at as a whole the gallery is forced to harness this conversation and bring to attention the voices of not only two people during the now, but many voices of an entire culture over years and years of hurt.
When walking in, the walls of the gallery are filled with bright colors and contrasted grey tones. There seems to be no theme with the order in which everything was hung, but there is a nice harmony resonating within the walls. From just looking, one can tell that each piece was chosen to hang next to another piece to emphasize its meaning, composition, and colors. There are no small pieces that are drowned out by larger pieces, and everything is in its place and builds a strong atmosphere.
The Senior Exhibition is a way to showcase the art from the soon to be graduating seniors. It takes place every semester towards the end in the Dedo Gallery located in the Fine Arts Gallery. The Student Myles Halcomb was the focus of this assignment to discuss his artwork inside the gallery and getting a better understanding of him and his interpretation. Myles Halcomb was born/ raised from Metro Atlanta , Georgia and currently resides in South Georgia. Aiming for a Bachelor of Arts with a focus of Graphic design. Growing up for Myles, Art has always been in his life growing up, he got his inspiration from his grandfather who was a Artist and created artwork as a hobby , which was a big asset to Myles life.
While interviewing Myles he stated that his focus was “To Rebrand the discontinue of Coca Cola, and bring awareness of my own interpretation of Coca Cola”. He plans to use his graphic knowledge to sell the idea and sell his ideas to the higher ups and individuals in charge of the graphic design of the Coca Cola brand to help allow opportunities. “Untitled” a self portrait of Myles Halcomb created in March 2022, with the mediums of Screen-printing, Ink and Printmaking paper was displayed in the Senior show and Myles stated that while creating this artwork he was going through a depression phase and practicing Expressionism with the use of colors , the Red represents Anger and Blue represents Sadness.
The Senior Exhibition is a way to showcase the art from the soon to be graduating seniors. It takes place every semester towards the end in the Dedo Gallery located in the Fine Arts Gallery. The Student Myles Halcomb was the focus of this assignment to discuss his artwork inside the gallery and getting a better understanding of him and his interpretation. Myles Halcomb was born/ raised from Metro Atlanta , Georgia and currently resides in South Georgia. Aiming for a Bachelor of Arts with a focus of Graphic design. Growing up for Myles, Art has always been in his life growing up, he got his inspiration from his grandfather who was a Artist and created artwork as a hobby , which was a big asset to Myles life. While interviewing Myles he stated that his focus was “To Rebrand the discontinue of Coca Cola, and bring awareness of my own interpretation of Coca Cola”. He plans to use his graphic knowledge to sell the idea and sell his ideas to the higher ups and individuals in charge of the graphic design of the Coca Cola brand to help allow opportunities. “Untitled” a self portrait of Myles Halcomb created in March 2022, with the mediums of Screen-printing, Ink and Printmaking paper was displayed in the Senior show and Myles stated that while creating this artwork he was going through a depression phase and practicing Expressionism with the use of colors , the Red represents Anger and Blue represents Sadness. The Artwork was meant to be a realization and coming to terms of letting go of his past emotions. Myles was very influenced by the anime and comic style of art and it connected him in different ways to improve his graphic designs. He included in his Artist Statement “making art let’s me express my full range of emotion.”
Myles Halcomb, Busy Hands, 18×24, Charcoal and Soft pastel, March 2021
With “Busy Hands” his focus was to play with abstraction and get a better understanding of how to play with different contrasts and textures to create variations. He was big on finding different ways to balance his emotions after difficult times he experienced and incorporates the emotions into his artworks. The line works emulate brushstrokes which gives it emotion. Music played a big part in his life and it’s his best way to express his emotions. Being a huge audiophile to different sounds from all over was good to help him improve his craft. With “Untitled” the expressive texture from the black ink layered on top of the red and blue which allows the blank expression on the portrait evoking strong feelings. The Artist Statement also talks more about his influence from his grand father and his mother who pushed him to a place , where he couldn’t even push himself. True art connects us in the never ending story of humanity and that helps inspire other individuals to express themselves in there own way, this helps make art unique. To conclude Myles wants to continue to be an Expressionism artist and interpret his love for music, comics, and anime in his own way to gain the recognition he wants to rebrand popular brands.
Nicholas Grier : Senior Profile, Valdosta State University with a Bachelor in Art, 2022
The “Valdosta National 2021”, is an event held by the Dedo Maranville Fine Arts Gallery at Valdosta State University, and many artists from all over the United States are represented at the “Valdosta National.” In an interesting turn of events due to the Coronavirus Outbreak, the “Valdosta National” is shown online for the first time in the show’s history. There is now a possible international audience to the show due to the better visibility of the show. Everyone with internet access across the world can view the “Valdosta National” at any time at their leisure. In some ways, however, there is a disadvantage to the “Valdosta National” being solely online. People cannot get a closer look at the art, especially with the three-dimensional artworks like the sculptures. There is a variety of artwork in 2021’s “Valdosta National,” as paintings, videos, sculptures, mixed media, photography, textiles, lithographs, and etchings are included. Cash awards were given to the top four winners at this exhibition and Claire Dempster was the juror and judge of 2021’s exhibition.
When visiting the Valdosta National over at www.vsugallery.org, viewers are met with information regarding this show’s conception. The Valdosta National is an annual competition and it is hosted by Valdosta State’s Dedo-Maranville Fine Arts Gallery. The competition is open to all artists over eighteen living in the US and the goal is to present the best of the best entered in the competition. The work presented is all media contemporary art made in the last five years. Due to the global pandemic, this year’s show was held at the gallery’s online space instead of the physical space that students and staff are used to. This year the show was juried and judged by Claire Dempster, and she selected a total of 70 works by 60 artists out of the total of 875 works that were submitted.
The Annette Howell Turner Center of the Arts in Valdosta, Georgia, is hosting the “She Said, She Said, She Said” exhibition. This exhibition, described as ACollage Collective, is hosted in the Josette’s Gallery and contains multiple artworks that go from collages to mixed media to short movies. The artists featured in this exhibition are Evelyn Davis-Walker, Amy Tingle, and Julie Graves Krishnaswami.
