Arts & Literature

The Peachtree Corners Artist’s Corner: A Conversation with Blair LeBlanc

Published

4 years ago

January 21, 2021

Kelsey Asher

Photograph by Leo Heikkila, 2021.

Blair LeBlanc is an American artist living between New York City and Atlanta, Georgia. She also grew up in the Peachtree Corners area.

“When I think of growing up in Peachtree Corners, I think of running around my neighborhood, rolling down hills, the smell of sweat and cut grass in the summer, dancing on the kitchen counter with my sister and our friends after school. It was a really normal, magical place to grow up,” LeBlanc said.

Her first solo painting exhibition (September – October 2020. Athens, GA) marked both her transition from photography and her homecoming from a year living in New York City. Recently, her photography landed in international press including Artforum and ARTnews in January 2020. Her next exhibition opens June 2021.

Like the Peachtree Corners area itself, LeBlanc appears to be in a constant state of professional transformation, as exhibited by her recent switch from the medium of photography to her current commitment to painting.

“I completed a project called Sacred Bloom, in March ’20, with Burnaway magazine. Which was a great experience. I got to work with both Executive Director Erin Jane Nelson and Editor-In-Chief Logan Lockner. Erin helped me edit my work and Logan wrote a beautiful lyrical poem to accompany it. What I love about Burnaway is they have a very strong focus, but stay open to oddities. So on Sacred Bloom, I felt guided but they also gave me the freedom to develop it and let it evolve. They are just ideal collaborators.

But, as far as my professional career goes, I think that project marked my last photo work. Since then, I pushed all my chips into painting. I prefer moving forward. I’ve got blinders on and am full force ahead.: LeBlanc said.

When asked about where she draws her artistic inspiration, LeBlanc had many sources to pull from.

*Basquiat ’82*, 2020. Image courtesy of Blair LeBlanc Studio.

“In this new body of work, Dream (2021), I conceptually create a painting for mega art dealer Larry Gagosian. So to make the work, I spent my summer studying the characteristics of what makes a painting that draws record-breaking sales. Surprisingly, the research brought me back to the people that inspired me to be an artist in the first place; Warhol, Picasso, Basquiat. I pulled from each of them and made my version of their work. I think of these paintings as universal or “Blockbuster”. They function in a similar way as a blockbuster movie or a pop song.

X, 2020. Image courtesy of Blair LeBlanc Studio.

The Beatles for example, you can go deep into their history, learn about their philosophy, sexuality, politics, influences, instruments, fashion…all of that. Or, you can just enjoy “I Want to Hold Your Hand” when it comes on at a beach party. Their music has a kind of open complexity that doesn’t ask anything of you, but offers it if you want it. And that’s the quality I hope to capture in my work,” LeBlanc said.

*Rockstar*, 2020. Image courtesy of Blair LeBlanc Studio.

The young artist has a sharp vision for her creative journey that will take her very far, allowing her fans to escape into the brilliant worlds of her making, which are fresh, new and familiar all at once.

Source: Biography info and photo credits provided by Blaire LeBlanc and Blair LeBlanc Studio

Related Topics:Artforum ARTnews athens ga blair leblanc Blair LeBlanc Studio Featured Larry Gagosian painting Peachtree Corners photography

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Kelsey Asher

Kelsey Asher is a proud graduate of the University of West Georgia with a Bachelor’s in Communications. She has held a variety of marketing leadership roles for several small, startup companies in a variety of industries including publishing, construction and technology.

Around Atlanta

The High Museum to Showcase “Thinking Eye, Seeing Mind”

Published

6 days ago

December 12, 2024

Peachtree Corners Magazine staff

Oil on paper artwork by Terry Winters. A large red circle with smaller blue circles on top of it and gold/yellow accents. All of it on a dark brown background.

The special exhibition of the Medford and Loraine Johnston Collection will run January 17 through May 25, 2025

In the mid-1970s, artist and Georgia State University professor Medford Johnston, along with his wife and collaborator Loraine, began collecting works by artists who were in the vanguard of contemporary art. Today, they hold one of the finest collections of postwar American drawings and related objects of its kind, now numbering more than 85 works.

In 2025, the High Museum of Art will present Thinking Eye, Seeing Mind: The Medford and Loraine Johnston Collection, featuring their collected works, which is a promised gift to the museum. Featuring artists such as Sol LeWitt, Brice Marden, Elizabeth Murray, Martin Puryear, Ed Ruscha, Al Taylor, Anne Truitt, Stanley Whitney and Terry Winters, among others, the exhibition will demonstrate how establishing the parameters of an art collection requires infinite patience, focus, discipline and a keen eye.

“The Johnstons have been friends of the High for a very long time. They’ve also built an impressive collection featuring works by many of the 20th century’s most significant abstract artists,” said the High’s Director Rand Suffolk. “We are honored that they have promised to leave their collection to the Museum where it will be preserved for future generations — and we are delighted that they are sharing it with our audiences now, hopefully inspiring the next generation of art collectors and supporters.”

A curated collection

The Johnstons’ story is a testament to, in the words of the High’s Wieland Family Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Michael Rooks, “knowing the difference between what is right and what is almost right” when building a collection.

Although the Johnstons acquired several paintings and objects when they first began collecting in 1972, they quickly narrowed their focus to drawing, primarily by artists working on the frontlines of abstraction in the mid-1960s during a time of great innovation and experimentation.

Ink drawing by Anne Truitt, rectangular lines and shapes made with black ink on off-white background — Anne Truitt (American, born 1921), *Ink Drawing ’59 [11]*, 1959, ink on paper, The Johnston Collection. © Estate of Anne Truitt / The Bridgeman Art Library / Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York.

Rooks added, “Med and Loraine’s collection struck me at once by its single-minded focus on a specific moment in time, which was essentially the time of their contemporaries. The artists in their collection are like close friends to the Johnstons — in fact many are or were. What is equally astonishing about the collection is the Johnstons’ dogged pursuit of quality. Their in-depth knowledge of each artist’s practice combined with their understanding of specific qualities to look for — or more appropriately, to hold out for — will be a revelation to emerging collectors.”

The Johnstons have built their collection with the High in mind as the benefactor of their passion and discernment. For them, their collection “is a labor of love, pursued over more than 50 years, and we are delighted to be able to help the High Museum document and celebrate these important artists working during the same decades as our lives.”

About the exhibit

Thinking Eye, Seeing Mind: The Medford and Loraine Johnston Collection will be presented in the Special Exhibition Galleries on the second level of the High’s Stent Family Wing.

The exhibit is organized by the High Museum of Art and made possible through the generosity of sponsors:

Premier Exhibition Series Sponsor Delta Air Lines, Inc.
Premier Exhibition Series Supporters Mr. Joseph H. Boland, Jr., The Fay S. and W. Barrett Howell Family Foundation, Harry Norman Realtors and wish Foundation
Benefactor Exhibition Series Supporters Robin and Hilton Howell
Ambassador Exhibition Series Supporters Loomis Charitable Foundation and Mrs. Harriet H. Warren
Contributing Exhibition Series Supporters Farideh and Al Azadi, Mary and Neil Johnson, Mr. and Mrs. Baxter Jones, Megan and Garrett Langley, Margot and Danny McCaul, Wade A. Rakes II and Nicholas Miller and Belinda Stanley-Majors and Dwayne Majors.

Support has also been provided by the Alfred and Adele Davis Exhibition Endowment Fund, Anne Cox Chambers Exhibition Fund, Barbara Stewart Exhibition Fund, Dorothy Smith Hopkins Exhibition Endowment Fund, Eleanor McDonald Storza Exhibition Endowment Fund, The Fay and Barrett Howell Exhibition Fund, Forward Arts Foundation Exhibition Endowment Fund, Helen S. Lanier Endowment Fund, John H. and Wilhelmina D. Harland Exhibition Endowment Fund, Katherine Murphy Riley Special Exhibition Endowment Fund, Margaretta Taylor Exhibition Fund, RJR Nabisco Exhibition Endowment Fund and USI Insurance Services.

About the High Museum of Art

Located in the heart of Atlanta, the High Museum of Art connects with audiences from across the Southeast and around the world through its distinguished collection, dynamic schedule of special exhibitions and engaging community-focused programs.

Housed within facilities designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architects Richard Meier and Renzo Piano, the High features a collection of more than 19,000 works of art, including an extensive anthology of 19th- and 20th-century American fine and decorative arts; major holdings of photography and folk and self-taught work, especially that of artists from the American South; burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary art, including paintings, sculpture, new media and design; a growing collection of African art, with work dating from prehistory through the present; and significant holdings of European paintings and works on paper.

The High is dedicated to reflecting the diversity of its communities and offering a variety of exhibitions and educational programs that engage visitors with the world of art, the lives of artists and the creative process.

For more information about the High or to purchase tickets, visit high.org.

Top image: (from the collection) Terry Winters (American, born 1949), Orb, 2020, oil on paper, The Johnston Collection. © Terry Winters, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York.

Around Atlanta

City Springs Theatre Company Presents the Hit Musical Jersey Boys

Published

6 months ago

July 3, 2024

Peachtree Corners Magazine staff

The megahit musical Jersey Boys is making its regional premiere with the City Springs Theatre Company in a five-week run.

The megahit musical Jersey Boys makes its regional premiere in City Springs Theatre Company’s (CSTC) first-ever, five-week run at the Byers Theatre in Sandy Springs.

Directed by Atlanta’s-own Shane DeLancey, and choreographed by Meg Gillentine, Jersey Boys tells the rags-to-riches story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. The show details their remarkable journey from the streets to the top of the charts, to their 1990 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Leading the cast of Jersey Boys is Haden Rider as Frankie Valli. Rider is a City Springs Theatre Company veteran, with recent roles in both Legally Blonde (Emmett) and Fiddler on the Roof (Perchik).

Presented by Resurgens Spine Center, Jersey Boys runs from July 12 through August 11, and shines a special spotlight on home-grown talent, as the show’s four leading men are all Atlanta-area residents.

With phenomenal music, memorable characters and great storytelling, Jersey Boys follows the fascinating evolution of four blue-collar kids who became one of the greatest successes in pop-music history.

“City Springs Theatre Company is very proud to be the first in the southeast region to present Jersey Boys,” said CSTC Artistic Director and Tony Award-winner Shuler Hensley. “Our audiences have been asking for this particular show since we opened. The production is truly stacked with talent onstage and off, and we’re pulling out all the stops to bring audiences an experience that will rival any previous version of the show.”

Jersey Boys premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2005, prior to its 13-year Broadway run, from 2005 to 2017. There have been productions of the show in Las Vegas, UK/Ireland, Toronto, Melbourne, Singapore, South Africa, the Netherlands, Japan, Dubai and China.

Jersey Boys features a book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, with music by Bob Gaudio, and lyrics by Bob Crewe.

Individual tickets to see Jersey Boys are on sale now ($42 – $108), with discounts for seniors, students, groups and active and retired military personnel.

CSTC’s Box Office is open Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Call 404-477-4365 or visit CitySpringsTheatre.com for more information.

This production contains adult language and is recommended for mature audiences.

Performance schedule:

Arts & Literature

Local Students Show Off Their Artistic Creations

Published

7 months ago

June 2, 2024

Peachtree Corners Magazine staff

Courtney Escorza, Colleen Nikopour, Laura Hwang, Jennifer Jackson, Norcross. Laura ELizabeth Martin, Payton Hirschmann, Paul Duke HS

From May 11 through May 18, the Norcross Gallery & Studios kicked off a fantastic exhibition, Reflections at Rectory, which showcased the works of 36 rising stars: AP and IB art students from our local high schools.

The opening reception celebrated their creativity and dedication. Gallery director Anne Hall presented a dozen awards generously sponsored by the community, a testament to the local support for these young artists.

One prestigious award, the Terri Enfield Memorial Award, holds special significance.

Established by Terri’s daughters, it recognizes not just artistic excellence, but also leadership, work ethic and the spirit of collaboration. Last year’s winner, Aidan Ventimiglia, even played a part in selecting this year’s recipient Jasmine Rodriguez.