ATHICA invites you to enjoy an extended showing of Brian George’s Piecemeal at Ciné through August 25th!

234 W Hancock Ave.     |     Athens, GA 30601     |     For hours, see:  www.athenscine.com

Piecemeal is a body of work guided by the hands, comprising a selection of collages built piece by piece over the course of two years. Materials are paired by tactile sensations and imagery selected by optical infatuation with color, texture, and fidelity. These artworks are combinations of appropriated parts gathered from the children’s illustrated bible, medical textbooks, and history books about frontier expansion. Connected by authoritative framing, these source images are taken out of context, perforated, confused, and aggregated into congested abstractions. The resulting compositions make it difficult to cleanly establish what is in the foreground and what is in the background. Oscillating between forward and backward looking is meant to mimic the process of incorporating history into contemporary life and creating an anachronistic record of experience.

While in my studio, it is important that constituent parts of images accumulate, separate, and synthesize across mediums to develop a history of engagement. Through a dedicated process of rearranging, a residual exchange between declared perimeters and surgically altered subjects attempts to reproduce the phenomena of inexplicable belief, naïve narratives, and the complicated context of American life.

 – Brian George

Brian George (American, b. 1994) takes images from discarded books and digital archives to undermine the clear narratives and stable images they hold. Biblical illustrations dissolve into acidic patterns and stories about Jesus become stories about carnal anatomy. As reverent spectacles are surgically removed from their sources and woven into new material contexts,
hypnotic rhythms emerge, relaxing the strict edges of positive and negative space. The resulting artworks become quiet monuments to not knowing and embrace their status as objects holding data that does not need resolution. George holds an MFA from the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia (2026) and a BFA from Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah (2022).