Since 2017 Susan Laney’s eponymous gallery has hosted a wide variety of thoughtfully diverse shows highlighting work by emerging and established regional and international contemporary artists. She has become a curator and gallerist of note in the Southeast and beyond, consistently bringing her artists to international art fairs in Miami and New York, and placing work in such prestigious public and private collections as Savannah’s own Telfair Museums and SCAD Museum of Art, Atlanta’s High Museum of Art, and Charleston’s Gibbes Museum of Art.
Her latest show, entitled emotion, opens Friday, Sept. 27, the seventh anniversary, to the day, of the opening of Laney Contemporary, and sadly, also the day of the gallerist’s mother’s death four years ago: “a wonderful, crazy, lovely, and emotional accident.”
It seems fitting that this exhibition is curated by two women, is installed in a female-owned gallery, and displays work by seven female artists. Born on the seventh day of the seventh month, Laney has always intuitively recognized the cultural and spiritual significance of that number. As her press release states, there are seven days of the week, seven chakras, seven dwarves, seven steps taken by the newborn Buddha, seven circumambulations around the shrine at Mecca… “Whether seeing all 7’s appear on a slot machine, or travelling to the seven wonders of the world, seven is unequivocally embedded within our numerological psyche.”
Laney entrusted the curation of this landmark show to her good friend and artist Jiha Moon (who is represented by Laney Contemporary) and to art historian and educator Veronica Kessenich, former director of Atlanta Contemporary. South Korean-born and Tallahassee, Florida-based Moon (b.1973) has included several of her own gestural paintings, mixed media, and ceramic sculptures. A 2023 Guggenheim Fellow known for reappropriating Eastern and Western motifs such as emoticons, text, product labels, and fashion, her works chart her journey from immigrant to citizen, daughter to mother, and student to teacher.
Moon tells me, “The question of ’emotion’ initially revolved around my own practice, which led me to explore the work of artists around me. Susan [Laney] suggested the idea of a solo show, but I wasn’t able to commit to it this year. In the meantime, I had long wanted to curate a group show centered on the theme of emotion, so I proposed this idea to Susan. I first reached out to Veronica [Kessenich], the other curator for the show, because I know she is a strong advocate for female artists like me, and we’ve worked together before.”
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Kessenich adds, “Jiha selected the title ‘emotion,’ and I loved it! I have always been told to ‘not be emotional’ but I’ve found that my emotions (and those of the women I know) drive their professional and personal lives. Emotion compels, disrupts, provokes. It is how I show up, and choosing it as our title provides us (and the incredible artists we’ve selected) to reimagine and reassert themselves in the world. Emotion equals power.”
On first entering Laney Contemporary’s building, one sees two striking, large-scale textile paintings by Atlanta native and Florida State University Department of Art professor Judy Rushin-Knopf (b.1960).
According to Rushin, “Several years ago, when illness befell my partner of 35 years, I began making textile works, equating them to loose canvas, and further, to the languishing d/evolution of physical integrity. These sculptural wall-hangings turn to clothing to explore the expression/flattening of identity and to suggest that as the physicality of a being transforms, so does their psychic nature.”
Also working in textiles is artist Victoria Dugger (b.1991), who lives and works in Athens, Georgia. A finalist for the highly coveted 2024 Hudgens Prize, Dugger creates pieces that at first glance seem playful, feminine, and pretty but which, on closer examination, can be somewhat grotesque as she explores and dissects her identity as a Black, disabled woman confined to a wheelchair.
Perhaps the most literal interpretation of emotion is contained in a series of ten ink, gouache, and watercolor paintings on paper by Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based Dawn Black (b.1970). Considering myself an ardent feminist and proponent of reproductive rights, the messaging of her “Against Grabbers” series seems blatant, angry, and very timely. This overtly narrative and political work differs from her moody and serene indigo cyanotypes, and the loosely painted, snake-entwined mythological women from her “First Rebels Descending” series which hang in the upstairs mirrored gallery.
In joyfully happy contrast to Black’s often heavy work, is the collection of small acrylic paintings created by Atlanta-based Tori Tinsley (b.1980). Represented by Laney Contemporary, Tinsley is ca resident artist in the Atlanta Contemporary Studio Artist program and describes her work as “inspired by bonds with my children and with my mother, who suffered from dementia…Steeped in both tenderness and dark humor, my work intends to add to discussion around motherhood, caregiving, and how it feels to love and be loved.”
Often using imagery from her children’s drawings, Tinsley’s colorful, floating, hug-enveloped babies and her playful “Donkeysss” (inspired by visiting Ossabaw Island) add a playful brightness to the show. I particularly like the comforting “Sleeper on a Rainbow” in which a cut-out cardboard figure gently sleeps atop a delightfully homemade cardboard frame that surrounds her childlike painting of a rainbow.
Feminist curator and community advocate Raheleh Filsoofi uses clay and sound as her expressive mediums. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, she and her musician husband are part of the city’s vibrant Middle Eastern community. Her interactive multimedia installation, “Imagined Boundaries,” is on display at Charleston’s Gibbes Museum through Oct. 4, and she will be included in a June 2025 Telfair Museums’ exhibition exploring clay’s materiality and her experiences as an Iranian American artist in the Southeast. Displayed on a monitor in the upstairs mirrored gallery, Filsoofi’s ceramic object, video and performance piece entitled “BITE” 2021 challenges current perspectives on ethics, politics, society, colonialism, and culture.
Emotion also includes several oil paintings by South Korean-born and New York-based Mie Yim (b.1963). Yim’s surreal work, often containing anthropomorphic figures in cotton candy colors, is rooted in trauma. In an artist statement from a prior show, she explains, “When making work, I start from an emotional space of the past, my childhood years. Abrupt migration from Korea to Hawaii when I was a young girl left an indelible impression of disconnectedness and longing. Making art is a way to reconstruct some kind of meaning and purpose of fragmented identity.”
The powerful messaging contained in Laney Contemporary’s seventh anniversary show is best explained in the words of curator Jiha Moon: “We aim to present a different perspective on what it means to be an ‘Artist.’ The [art] community has long been influenced by terms like ‘genius’ or ‘talented,’ as if artists are born with innate abilities. This mindset is deeply tied to how art history has traditionally shaped our view of artists. However, the seven artists in this show are using ’emotion’ as the driving force behind their work and are unapologetic about it. We challenge this traditional toxic notion to argue what artists mean these days. We embrace our identities—whether as mothers, teachers, immigrants, people with disabilities, or minorities—and actively integrate these aspects of ourselves into our creative process.”
If You Go >>
What: emotion opening reception at Laney Contemporary
When: 6 to 8:30 p.m., Sept. 27
Where: Laney Contemporary, 1810 Mills B Lane Blvd., Savannah
Info: laneycontemporary.com/
At 11:30 a.m., on Saturday, Sept. 28, the curators will host an artists talk. Standing room will be available, but to reserve a seat, email sarahc@laneycontemporary.com. Laney Contemporary is open Tuesday through Saturday and by appointment.
