Current Exhibitions

Zoey Frank

Painting at the Bo Bartlett Center

May 20th - December 13th, 2024

In 2021, Frank began work on a monumental 18’ x 20’ painting of a backyard gathering. The painting spans five large canvases that she has been developing separately in her studio. (The studio ceilings are only 10’ high.) She will be assembling the full painting for the first time this summer and finishing it with a scissor lift during a six-week artist residency under the high ceilings of the Bo Bartlett Center at Columbus State University. She has put about a year of full time work into this project to date.

Frank often uses a specific Baroque or Renaissance composition as the basis for a painting. In this case, she chose Velasquez’s The Spinners, which is thought of as an allegory for painting. In the foreground we witness women in the act of spinning wool and in the background a group admires a finished tapestry. Velasquez represents the material process making art from beginning to end. For this reason, The Spinners felt like an apt starting place to craft her first monumental painting.

She works over a long period of time on her canvases, building up crusty layers of figures and abstract patterns over time, gradually working towards a final version of the composition. Traces of the earlier states of the painting remain visible, creating a record of the process of making the work. This results in rough surfaces of thick paint––and a unique combination of realistic, sculptural figures with abstract patterns and shapes.

Reed Fine Suzanne, *Two Things Can Be True*

Beyond Go Figure V

June 4th - August 24th, 2024

Beyond Go Figure is a yearly exhibition through the Bo Bartlett Center containing works by established, upcoming, and student artists in the Chattahoochee Valley community. By spotlighting local artists, we are able to showcase the existing and continuously expanding arts community in Columbus and the surrounding areas. Every exhibition, participating artists have the option to list their work for sale. This provides visitors the opportunity to directly support their local artists in addition to seeing the exhibition.

Thank you to our sponsors: JoAnne and Bob Hecht

Works from the Bartlett Center's Permanent Collection

Works from the Sandy Bartlett Scarborough Collection of historically important paintings by Bo Bartlett features paintings and drawings executed by the artist between 1977-2019, currently on view in the Scarborough Gallery.

Below are videos discussing some of the larger works that are a part of the center's permanent collection:

Civil War, 1994, Oil on linen, 134 x 204 in.
Damascus Road, 1988, Oil on linen, 120 x 168 in.
Good Old Days, 2000, Oil on linen, 94 x 98 in.
Habeas Corpus, 2006, Oil on linen, 82 x 128 in.
Hiroshima, 1994, Oil on linen, 134 x 204 in.
Leviathan, 2000, Oil on linen, 188 x 138 in.
Object Permanence, 1986, Oil on linen, 120 x 168 in.
Parents, 1988, Oil on linen, 88 x 112 in.
Tarmac, 1986, Oil on linen, 88 x 176 in.
The Last Correspondence of Ray Johnson, 2006, Oil on linen, 88 x 67.5 in.

Bo's Brain

Curated by Bo Bartlett, Bo's Brain is currently installed in the Cheves Archival Gallery with a time-lapse video by Matt Hanner and two channel audio by Man Bartlett.

Watch The Brain with Bo Bartlett