The Lounge Gallery, with windows looking out over the best view of north Athens, features quarterly solo exhibitions by emerging artists. Artists in the beginning stages of their careers are invited to show wall-bound works in mediums alternating from drawing to painting to photography to printmaking. The opening receptions for theses exhibitions will coincide with Third Thursday art events so there will always be a new exciting exhibit to stop in and see.

Our first exhibition in the Lounge Gallery for 2016 features brilliant paintings by Spence Townsend. Townsend examines animals, people and spaces through a fantastical lens creating paintings that vibrate with color, pulse with imaginative energy and exude humor. His paintings tell stories, some tales are more far-fetched than others. He believes that the picture must always sing, and the song must always paint a picture. Together, these pictorial and musical elements weave into narratives which transform the mundane into magic. Townsend’s work is at once funny, beautiful and horrifying. C'est la vie.

Townsend has lived the majority of his life in Hattiesburg, Mississippi painting and playing punk rock. He earned a BFA in Painting from the University of Southern Mississippi in 2005. During his time there he also worked at a military base as a “mock insurgent”, aiding in training scenarios for soldiers being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. After working for six years as the primary manual screen printer at a tee-shirt shop in Hattiesburg, he decided to attend graduate school at the University of Georgia in 2013. Townsend currently lives in Athens with his lovely wife Julia, and their darling dog Debbie Hairy.
Spence Townsend’s exhibition will be on view from February 18 - April 30

The opening reception will be Thursday, March 24, 6:00 pm- 8:00 pm