Lydon House Gallery July 2005

The Lyndon House Arts Center is a local gallery funded by the Athens-Clarke Government. It’s located on Hoyt St. on the outskirts of downtown. It's rather large compared to other galleries. Not at all lacking in space. It also includes kitchen, artist studios, conference room, stuff for sale. open, stars in middle like a museum. In addition to the rotating exhibits, the Lyndon House Arts Center has a number of works by local artists for sale in its shop, including blown glass by various members of the Benzunas family, and silk screen items and paintings by Margret Agner

Currently the south gallery has no exhibit. The three exhibits that are currently up will be on display until August 6, 2005.

There are two artists featured downstairs in the Ronnie Lukasiewicz Gallery, Sunny Taylor and Micheal Lachowski. Both of them are young contemporary artists. I did not find Micheal Lachowski’s photos and drawings highly impressive. They were nice but still missing something. The photos of his house, while technically fine, did not seem to have any artistic quality whatsoever. I did like the Marshmallow series of the young model. Lachowski seems to have an eye for portraits. They reminded me of something you might expect from New York gallery in the early 90’s .

I did like Sunny Taylor’s paintings and watercolors, particularly the portrait of David which was featured in the Athens Banner Herald Marquee. I found the paining of the baby in the jumper (Jolly Jumper) interesting and captivating and somewhat grotesque. Also her water colors had a certain sloppy style, that can be inviting. While looking at her website I noticed that she has a disabilty which requires her to paint with her mouth. I realize that this doesn't say anything about her ability as a painter, but it is interesting.

Upstairs was an exhibit sponsored by Nuci’s space, Head Spinning , featuring album covers and the art that inspired them . The only problem I have is that there wasn’t as much diversity as I would have liked. Most of the bands were of the indie/punk rock genre. The exhibit was filled with album art from bands like Pylon, Five Eight, R.E.M, the Talking Heads, Green Day, and Elf Power. There were only a few bands I had not heard of. But it was nice to see the art work that inspired album covers I have admired. Most of the art was by Terry Rowlett, the cover of Kevin Kinney’s “Sun Tangled Angel Revival”, and a nurse for the cover of Five Eight’s “The Good Nurse”. John Hawkins did a painting called The Young Professionals, that was reproduced on the cover of the Squalls CD’ No Time. These three paintings are all bright, clear oil paintings with vibrant colors and a distinctive edge. However the fourth cover (an Elf Power album) that I particularly liked was not a painting at all. Instead it was a muted college by Laura Carter (presimably of Elf Power). These four pieces of art are only a few of the many varied and excellent pieces currently hanging in the Lyndon House Arts Center.