Made in Americus 2024

Made in Americus 2024 Georgia Southwestern Art Department Faculty On View | October 30 - December 13, 2024 

Opening Reception | Tuesday, October 29 | 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm

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Laurel Robinson

Department Chair - Painting & Drawing Professor

Laurel, originally from Pittsburgh, PA, received her BFA in Painting in 1974 and her MFA in Painting in 1977, from the University of Cincinnati. She has done post-graduate study at UCLA in Paleoecology, Sculpture and Scientific Illustration (1982), University of Tasmania Centre for the Arts in Semiotics (Australia, 1986), University of Tel Aviv in Hebrew (Israel, 1988) and a variety of coursework at GSW from Sociology of Religion, Literature, to Math and Culture (1979-2011). She has been a professor at GSW since 1978 and the chair of the department since 2007. Laurel has taught or presented visiting lectures at a variety of universities: University of Tasmania, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University, UC San Diego, Maryland Institute of Art, St. Mary's University, Winona MN, University of Wisconsin, Whitewater and U of Georgia. Laurel's exhibition record spans her career with regional, national and international venues and her work is included in several museum permanent collections: The Jewish Museum of NYC, The Skirball Museum at NYU, Cincinnati Museum of Art, List College at Columbia University, NYC Collection and the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Macon, Georgia.

Keaton Wynn

Art History & Ceramics Professor

Keaton Wynn is a Professor of Art teaching both Art History and Ceramics at Georgia Southwestern State University. He earned his BFA in Ceramics at Missouri State University, his MFA in Ceramics from Kent State University, and an MA in Art History from Virginia Commonwealth University. Wynn works as a practicing artist exhibiting widely in regional, national, and international exhibitions. While teaching at GSW he has received the President's award for Excellence in Service in 2010 and the Faculty Excellence in Scholarship award in 2016. In recent years he has directed and co-directed study abroad programs to China, Africa, and Nepal. Wynn has given workshops and presentations nationally and internationally and has been a Visiting Scholar at the Xian Academy of Fine Art in Xian China, The Dunhuang School of Art, Northwest Normal University and Shanghai Normal University. Since the fall of 2012 Wynn has been the Director of the Dunhuang Creative Center (now called the Lanzhou Ceramic Residency) which he helped establish at Lanzhou City University. Under his direction LZCU has developed the only academic ceramics program in Gansu province which is now the largest program of its kind in western China. Recently, Wynn has completed a multi-year research project in Gansu into the use of indigenous materials for ceramic production. The residency program encourages Western artist's responses to Yellow River culture, the Silk Road, and the Dunhuang Buddhist Grottoes. In 2017, he established the Center for Chinese Bie modern Studies at GSW in collaboration with the Institute of Aesthetics and Aesthetic Education at Shanghai Normal University, which encourages critical engagement of contemporary Chinese culture. In 2019, a sister center was established at the University of Primorska in Koper Slovenia. Wynn currently lives in Plains, Georgia with his wife Stephanie who works as a medical social worker. Together they have two children Ian and Maya, a Lab Pit Bull mix named Zoe, a yellow cat named Soren Kierkegaard and his own personal cat Hildegard who secretly controls everyone.

Charles Wells

Glass Blowing, Printmaking, & Sculpture Professor

Charles Wells has earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Midwestern State University and a Master of Fine Arts from Texas Christian University. He strives to ensure that each piece is visually engaging, thought provoking, and entertaining. It is his hope that the viewer will enjoy the formal playfulness and seek deeper meaning.

Justin Hodges

Senior Lecturer - Photography and Digital Arts

Justin Hodges is an interdisciplinary artist, originally from Southeast Georgia. He received a BFA in photography from Georgia Southwestern State University and an MFA from the University of Cincinnati where he focused on new media installation. Justin is responsible for teaching traditional Wet Lab and Digital Photography, as well as Digital Arts. Justin's work addresses the proliferation of digital technologies, and the ways in which these technologies shape perception and the natural world. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including the Kunsthalle, Weissensee in Berlin, Germany, Lanzhou City University, Lanzhou, China, Inert Gallery, New York, New York, Jajaja Space at the University of Notre Dame, Skylab Gallery in Columbus, Ohio, and the Phyllis Weston Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio.