Even after a quarter century of serving artists and audiences, the UGA Performing Arts Center finds new ways to engage the community.
Margaret Morrison’s “Free Fall” (Photo courtesy of the Woodward Gallery)
On Jan. 29 at 6 p.m., just before a Hodgson Concert Hall performance by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the PAC opens its Lobby Gallery with a reception celebrating the inaugural show by Margaret Morrison.
Four large-scale paintings from Morrison’s “Paradigm Shift” series now occupy walls on the mezzanine. This free exhibit runs through July 26 and can be viewed Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m, and during all public events and performances.
“I’m delighted to be the first artist to show in the space,” said Morrison. “The lighting—holy smoke! It’s a similar light to the light I used in the studio to create them. It makes the colors pop the way they were on my easel.”
Morrison’s paintings were created after she began to question historical aspects of her closely held Mormon faith. “This body of work is the most personal I have done,” she says, though she stresses that the questioning impulse is not limited to her faith tradition.
The figures in Morrison’s paintings are UGA theatre students acting out scenarios devised by Morrison; the landscapes and locations, she says, “are out of my head.”
Morrison is a professor of art and area chair of drawing and painting in the Lamar Dodd School of Art. She has been represented by the Woodward Gallery in New York since 1995. Her solo exhibition “Paradigm Shift” was featured at the Lyndon House Art Center in 2023. She was awarded Best in Show at ArtFields 2023 Fine Art Exhibition and Competition. Her paintings are currently in “Picture This,” traveling to art museums throughout Georgia. She is concurrently featured in a Solo Exhibition in NYC with Woodward Gallery at 60 Pine Street.
