FOR THE CULTURE |

Pastor and First Lady Johnson invite you to join us at the Averitt Center for the Arts for John Givens: In the Wake opening reception on Thursday, January 10 from 5:30 to 7 pm.

 

There will be a brief gallery talk at 6 pm by Curator, Sheila Stewart Leach and a Poetry Reading of three of John's poems immediately following, organized by Mical Whitaker. Pastor and First Lady Johnson are very proud to sponsor this amazing exhibition.

This is John Givens' first one-person exhibition of his work. He was born in Claxton and spent much of his life in Bulloch County. A self-trained artist, his work is about his life in the dirty South and his reaction to media coverage of the fight for civil rights. His compositional style and complex use of materials, however, is anything but untrained. HIs sometimes lyrical, as in Carl below, and sophisticated layering of both imagery and media reminds one of James Ensor's disturbing drawings and paintings (in Europe as Hitler came to power) and of Egon Schiele's delicate beauty in his use of color in his figurative work.

Join the Averitt Center for the Arts on Thursday as the community welcomes this deserving, talented African American artist and his work to the main gallery. 

Public Reception is from 5:30 - 7 pm;
Gallery Talk at 6:00; Poetry Reading at 6:10
Hors d'ouevres and, Punch and Wine served

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Averitt Center for the Arts

33 East Main Street | Downtown Statesboro | 912.212.2787