Two Worth Seeking Out in Decatur
The Atlanta Journal Constitution; Fri. Jun 7, 2002 Visual Arts
"Two Worth Seeking Out in Decatur"
by Jerry Cullum
Temple Gallery is one of Decatur's best-kept secrets. The Dekalb Council for the Arts' hallway gallery sits on the second floor of the Pythagorean Masonic Temple downtown, centrally located but 
invisible from the street.
New curator Troy Eittreim is striving to present shows that make it worthwhile to find the gallery, and his first exhibition, "Local Figures," is definitely promising. "What happens when traditional Southern art-making intgrates with contemporary art and concerns?" Eittreim asks, but the show answers another question entirely. Though the stitchery of Ashley Benton's pieces recalls Southern traditions, such things as her titles from Pablo Neruda make clear that her work is more akin to Lisa Shinault's stitched-together paintings of "Difficult Women," and DeDe Spitz's folklike paintings are also, plainly, not truly naive.
Insofar as the show is about any single thing, body image is the topic. Barbara Schreiber's drawings, "My Head" and "My Thigh," are situated across the hall from Jill Larson's series of close-up photographs of her 3-year-old's skin. Eittreim has included his own work, multipart paintings that parody website advertisings rhetoric and website gratuitous nudity.
Across the street on Decatur Square, Vinson Gallery has a show of Dutch printmakers that includes a fair range of cutomary Dutch aesthetic strategies , form the exact yet evocative representation of Wim Bettenhausen's portrayals of Amsterdam to a peculiarly Dutch species of silliness in Ad Verstynen's extremely well-done cartoonlike imagery. The options in between are an attractive variety of styles that make it clear why Vinson was willing to take on this particular set of artists.
The Verdict: An interesting range of work.
