This past weekend native Atlanta artist, Jay Payton, opened a gallery exhibition at the Mammal Gallery downtown. This project, The Pragmatic Protagonist, featured pieces on anything from fabric to canvases with accidental footprints, and even a destroyed car seat he took from a steel junkyard. Jay explained that these pieces had taken a year in the making and were all a sort of process of internal growth through expression.
Jay’s use of different medium and primary colors draws you in a Basquiat type of way; curious yet introspective.
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Each piece explained a grieving process or an understanding of something larger than himself. One featured a tree with sunlight beaming on it, when asked about it’s meaning Jay stated, “it’s symbolic of the process a seed goes through to become a tree. Much like a seed and it’s needed for substance from the sun, us humans take in nutrition to grow stronger as well”.
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Jay furthers the explanation about his gallery relaying the message of growth and the importance of what we choose to nourish our mind and spirit.