Jan 5, 2010

Local gallery a salvation for Atlanta artistsBy Matt AmattoChampionNewspaper.com

Art crawls and twists from floor to ceiling at Donna Van Gogh’s gallery like colorful kudzu directed by a natural force of feng shui. It is, all at once, complex and charming and evocative and bright, from covering the gambit of traditionalist concepts to straight-up avant-garde weirdness.

Perfect example: a painting of local intersecting street signs hangs comfortably near one of a grinning neon skeleton, while topping it off, a cut-out Elvis Presley provocatively postures opposite rows of prints.

It’s wacky (but not in a Panama City gift shop’s sense of clashing disarray), refined (but not in a stuffy, must-have-a-martini-to-view-the-exhibit way) and, above all, unique to metro Atlanta. And that’s exactly what owner Teri Stewart wants. “This city has gotten less funky and quirky,” she declared. “We’re trying to keep some of the soul going.”

A clichéd narrative of Stewart’s profession would go along the lines of art being “more than a business; it’s a way of life.” And so it is; her sincerity that the quaint Candler Park gallery is one of the few survivors of a less art-conscious, more greed-driven culture is undeniable.

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