27th Annual Members Juried Show | Curator’s Walkthrough with Arnika Dawkins

Join us Thursday July 29th at 7pm Eastern for a conversation with Arnika Dawkins of Arnika Dawkins Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia and Griffin Museum Executive Director Paula Tognarelli.

This event is FREE to Griffin Museum members. $10 for Non Members. Interested in Membership and its benefits? See more about what the Griffin offers here

This event will be a virtual walk through highlighting the artists and images of the 27th Annual Juried Members Exhibition.

An exhibition catalog has been produced and available in the Griffin store online and at the museum.

About Arnika Dawkins –

Arnika Dawkins is the owner of her eponymous fine art photography gallery established in 2012 in Atlanta, GA. She shows work by talented emerging and mid-career artists specializing in showing fine art photography by African Americans and images of people from the African Diaspora.

Beauty as Refuge/Arnika Dawkins

I wish to thank Executive Director Paula Tognarelli and the Griffin Museum for inviting me to participate in their annual 27th Juried Exhibition. It is a real honor. I also wish thank all of the artists that submitted their work for consideration.

It was hard to winnow down to a select few images; however, the select few in this exhibition are a grand statement of my personal aesthetic. I am interested in photography; in fact, I love it and have a passion for it. More specifically, I am interested in fine art photography. I am captivated to know what the artist’s work conveys to me, and I am curious to know how engaged I am in a visual dialogue. This exhibition, Beauty as Refuge, is a reflection of that. I believe that the works on view expose conceptual ideas that are transformative in significant and subtle ways. This exhibition evokes calm, peace, and serenity, and beauty.

I believe that artists are dialed to a different level of sensitivity, seeing the world in ways that astonish, capturing moments of contemplation, and interested in ideas that they wish to convey. I am interested in the intention behind their capture.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; serenity is in the chaotic landscape of culture. This country and many countries around the world are in a reckoning, going through an identity crisis, the antithesis of tranquility and harmony. I am interested in fine art photography that makes me feel something, a reason to pause and reflect. A visual refuge from the current volatile times we live in, the global pandemic, and suffering. This exhibition provides a chorus of images that come together to provide the respite that we need to reflect, to consume striking beauty amid the hectic and frenetic world.

The visual dialogue that we experience by viewing these images takes us along a journey. A journey of humanity, of our place in the world, of our environment, and microcosm. If we look, we can find beauty in the unexpected and find solace in our hope in the future. It is the human condition. Beauty, strength, and acknowledgment that we were here; how we fit in the world, in the environment, and with each other.

Pensive moments that provide an opportunity to pause for reflection are what I believe the world needs now, reflecting on where we have been, the present, and the future. Imagining what it could be full of beauty and compassion firmly rooted in our uniqueness. It’s our varied past and ever-present that creates the beautiful tapestry of life, knowing that there is tension but navigating our way through to the future. Beauty surrounds us if we take a moment to stop, reflect, and take it all in, reflections that reveal who we are and  who we can be.

Beauty as a Refuge is a place where thoughts can be considered, minds can be opened, perspectives can be changed, and hearts can be warmed. The works in this exhibition revel in an appreciation for light, simplicity, abstraction, serenity and provide a feast for the eyes. A way to immerse the viewer into a total experience!

I hope you enjoy  the view.    – AD