McEachern Art Center Bolsters CLA Arts Programming

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McEachern Art Center
photo by Maryann Bates

Mercer’s McEachern Art Center is entering its first full year of programming with a strong roster of emerging artists alongside student and faculty work. As we enter the academic year, the MAC (we’ve lovingly shortened the center’s title) will host regular film screenings, poetry readings, lectures, a monthly record listening night and more through collaborations with local businesses and departments across the College of Liberal Arts. (Photo above by Maryann Bates)

We’re in the midst of updating the second-floor studio area with movable walls and a “clean room” dedicated to finishing and presenting student work. The Dulcimer office is relocating to the MAC, pushing us closer to a dream of poets working alongside painters, in a beautiful space, with tons of creative muscle. I am personally very excited about the development of a visiting artist program within the Art Department headquartered at the MAC beginning in the fall of 2020. This effort will bring a changing, young and innovative presence to our department every year to model contemporary professional practices and research while networking art majors with the art world. We’ll also begin our “window residency” program on the film screens in our gallery windows. This will feature international time-based artists showing art films, animations and other moving images out to Second Street on weekend evenings. Macon, it turns out, is becoming a destination for the arts!

The first show of the fall season features an ambitious set of oil paintings from Philadelphia-based Christie DeNizio. Christie’s work is a hard stare at the history of European painting and shouldn’t be missed. It is technical, personal and deep. The exhibit opened Sept. 6 with a reception. The artist will offer a lecture on her work at a celebration of the exhibition on Oct. 18. Gary Blackburn, stalwart of the Art Department, will exhibit photographs in sculpted frames and turned wooden forms beginning Nov. 1 with an artist’s talk that evening. Kelly Kristin Jones’ interventions and photographs open Feb. 6, and the Art Department’s always-fun senior show opens April 24. Look out for an all-Macon open call next summer, too.

The gallery is open Thursday through Saturday afternoons from 4-8 p.m., where you can find the latest edition of art-related periodicals to peruse in addition to the exhibitions. Our student-docents will happily show you around. All of our programming is free and open to the public. You can keep up with our growing event schedule on Facebook and Instagram @mceachernartcenter and, soon enough, at www.macmacon.com. Please reach out to me directly at dunn_bwr@mercer.edu or (478) 301-2959 with your ideas.

Very Best,
Ben Dunn
Director, McEachern Art Center