Sunday, October 11th at 2 PM the Walnut Gallery opens its doors in the newly renovated “Odd Fellows Hall” in Downtown Gadsden with a reception for an exhibition of paintings and drawings by artist and educator Anne Wedler. Located above Recovery Room Upholstery on the corner of 6th and Walnut St., the Walnut Gallery will also host a screening of the hit PBS documentary series Art:21 on Thursday, October 15th at 7 PM. Fine Art classes in figure drawing, painting, photography, and sculpture will also be offered for all age groups and skill levels starting in November.
The opening of the Walnut Gallery is a culmination of almost two years of preparation and planning by gallery founders Mario Gallardo and Robert Hendrickson. The two started a complete renovation of the old “Odd Fellows” meeting hall in Downtown Gadsden with the intention of creating a working art studio. Their vision grew over time to include a contemporary art gallery, an artist residency program, and a school of fine arts. “We’re beyond excited to finally be opening our doors to the public,” said Gallardo. “We’ve got so many exhibitions, classes, and ideas in store. Sunday’s opening will be the first of many, many more to come.” The Walnut Gallery features a first class 2,500 square-foot exhibition hall suitable for both paintings and sculpture exhibitions and will feature local, regional, and nationally recognized artists; the first of which is a painting exhibition by Anne Wedler.
Anne Wedler teaches drawing and painting at Jacksonville State University and has exhibited her work regionally and nationally. She has a BFA in Drawing and Painting from Missouri State University and an MFA in Painting from Indiana University. A two-time recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshield’s Foundation Grant, Wedler works on a large scale creating figurative and narrative oil paintings grounded in the history of abstraction. The characters in her paintings find themselves at odds with each other and their situations, something the artist describes as: “the fun of chaos… balanced with the dual joy and torture of intimacy”. The exhibition features several large paintings and gestural figure studies as well as a selection of small, painterly still-lifes.