“Celebrate and support your community.”
That’s the message from Double Eagle Jean Gray Mohs, who graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in painting in 2002 and later earned her Master of Fine Arts in teaching in 2008.
This mantra of supporting and engaging with the community began while she was still a student herself. While pursuing her undergraduate degree, she and a group of her colleagues launched their own artist collective, Stillmoreroots, around the state.
“It was a really meaningful community to help explore what we were, to create challenging, accessible art, and to create a space for dialogue with the community,” said Mohs. “There’s an internal support group that you could always throw any idea out and be accepting of.”
That group recently celebrated 20 years of exhibitions with the show Common Thread | Common Ground exhibition at the Kalmanson Gallery in Swainsboro, Georgia, and included more Eagle alumni such as Nick Nelson, Anthony Faris, Brandon Tatom and Desmal Purcell.
These sustained connections with the Georgia Southern arts community are what brought her to another alumni-connected art exhibit: “Continuum: Biennial Alumni Exhibition.” She, along with 15 other Eagles, have submitted their pieces to the display hosted by their alma mater.
This monthlong exhibit takes place at the Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art (BFSDoArt) at Georgia Southern University, and runs from Aug. 10 to Sept. 14 in the Contemporary and University galleries of the Center for Art & Theatre in Statesboro. The reception will be on Friday, Sept. 2, from 5 to 7 p.m. The events are free, and the public is welcome.
Continuum exhibit
“Continuum” highlights the diverse professional art practices and continued creative endeavors of BFSDoArt alumni. The exhibition showcases an interdisciplinary selection of painting, drawing, small metals, digital design, ceramics, photography, prints, textiles, sculpture and more.
“This is a fantastic showing of what our alumni are up to these days” said Gallery Director Jason Hoelscher, Ph.D. “The exhibition features work ranging from relatively recent graduates to those who finished their studies in decades past. Given this breadth, it’s interesting to see the spectrum of approaches–not only in terms of discipline or medium, but also in terms of those continually exploring new artistic approaches, and those who relentlessly refine and perfect their technique to open up new areas of what might otherwise seem to be established modes of artmaking.”
The exhibition features new and recent artwork by Ashley Anderson, Elizabeth Debban, Mariana S. Depetris, William T. Dooley, Lindsey Gerow, Thyatira Grant, Susan Harmon, D’Antre Harris, Nikolaus James, Nicole James, Zak Kelley, Tyre McDonald, Jean Gray Mohs, Cynthia L. Rodday, Brian Russell, and Jing Zhou.
