The Gala is an important fundraiser for the Huntsville Museum of Art. The Gala Art Exhibition presents over 100 artworks in a range of media and styles, to be auctioned to the highest bidder during the annual Gala event. This year’s featured artist is Lesley Powell. Organized by HMA.

About Lesley Powell:
Lesley Powell finds inspiration in translating her own perception of a scene into a painting that involves the viewer and calls forth the viewer’s own responses. Her subjects range from intimate still lifes and interiors to sweeping outdoor vistas. Powell works with a classical approach to color and composition, but her point of view is fresh and contemporary. She eliminates extraneous details and focuses instead on the most compelling aspects of her subject. She uses simple but interesting shapes to convey these aspects. Lesley’s still-life paintings are sensitively observed in the quiet of her studio. Similarly, her landscapes and interiors all originate from firsthand observation and work on location. Larger studio works spring from her in-person studies and sketches.

Lesley Powell lives in Charlotte, NC, but her easel accompanies her on travels far and wide. She has studied on an ongoing basis with internationally acclaimed artist Maggie Siner. Powell is represented by Huff Harrington Fine Art in Atlanta. Her work is also on her website: www.lesleypowellart.com.

The latest exhibition in this long-standing showcase for outstanding regional contemporary art focuses on recent works by this critically-acclaimed realist artist who lives and works in rural Georgia. Known for his breathtakingly expansive oil paintings, John Cleaveland offers viewers a timeless glimpse into iconic Southern scenes as well as vast pastoral expanses of the United States and Europe. The artist enjoys conveying perspective and qualities of light in remarkable detail — allowing for total immersion in his works. Standing in front of one of Cleaveland’s large-scale oil paintings, you may feel as if you could walk right into the landscape before you. Organized by HMA.

Born in 1963, Cleaveland received his BFA from the University of Georgia and held a graduate assistantship in the study aboard program in Cortona, Italy. “Before Italy, I was an abstract painter,” he observes. “It was in Italy that I realized landscapes were the best way to convey emotions.” And Cleaveland’s paintings are all about emotion — the passage of time, the harsh yet beautiful reality of nature, the cycle of life and death. It’s not unusual to see an old house falling down from neglect, a steam engine from another era, or even a deer lying dead by the side of the road in one of his canvases. “Nature dies, but it also rekindles itself,” he says. “What I sometimes see is like Mozart’s Requiem, in part really sad, but also very beautiful.”

Cleaveland has exhibited his work at the Albany Museum of Art, the University of Georgia, the Missouri State Botanical Gardens, and in several Red Clay Survey exhibitions at the Huntsville Museum of Art. His paintings are in the permanent collections of the Asheville Art Museum, the UGA State Botanical Garden of Georgia, the Combat Art Collection at the U.S. Marine Corps Museum, and the Morris Museum of Art, among others.

Utilizing works found within the Museum’s acclaimed permanent collection, A World Within presents a diverse array of art by women that explores a range of media and subject matter with broad variation in style and method.

Traditionally accepted feminine art practices are being embraced, ignored, or transformed, as each artist sees fit, across the spectrum of women’s art. Accordingly, this exhibition examines some of the ways that female artists evolve their chosen mediums, contemplate the world, and represent themselves and other women. Throughout the exhibition there is a subtle duality at play, encompassing both what is portrayed and the imagined world of the artist’s creation. The viewer is thus invited to consider the works on display in a complex way, and to make unexpected connections throughout the galleries.

With over 3,000 artworks locked away in climate-controlled storage rooms, it’s not surprising that most of the works in the Huntsville Museum of Art’s permanent collection are rarely seen by the public in the main galleries. This exhibition will allow the curators to “shine a light” on many noteworthy paintings, prints, sculptures, photographs and craft works that have been acquired by the museum over the past fifty years but have not been displayed in decades, if ever. Be prepared to be surprised and delighted as we unearth these hidden art treasures for all to discover and enjoy! Organized by HMA.
By Communications Department| November 12th, 2022|Current Exhibition|0 Comments
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The Huntsville Museum of Art is pleased to have the opportunity to showcase its permanent collection of works created by African American artists, complemented by selected works depicting African American subjects created by non-black artists. The selection features regionally and nationally acclaimed artists working in a variety of media, including Benny Andrews, Elizabeth Catlett, Luigi Lucioni, Althea Murphy-Price, Clifton Pearson, Renee Stout, and Mose Tolliver, among others. Organized by HMA.
HMA Black History Month Committee Members:

Bobby Bradley, Co-Chair
Dianne Reynolds, Co-Chair
Ina Wilson Smith
Herman Stubbs
Denise Swain
Lady Tucker