Southern landscapes focus of 2 exhibits at UNG Dahlonega, Gainesville

Southern landscapes will be the focus of two exhibits in February at the University of North Georgia's (UNG) Dahlonega and Gainesville campuses, including work from a Guggenheim-award winning photographer.<br /> <br /> Jeff Whetstone, a 2007 recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship, will present at the Feb. 12 opening of the "2015 Appalachia Here and Now" exhibit at UNG. Other recipients of Guggenheim fellowships, given to assist research and artistic creation, have included Poets Laureate and Nobel Prize winners.<br /> <br /> Whetstone will talk about his award-winning body of work "New Wilderness" at 5 p.m. Feb. 12 in the Hoag Auditorium on UNG's Dahlonega Campus. The presentation will be followed by an opening reception in the nearby Bob Owens Art Gallery, where Whetstone's photographs will be on exhibit through March 12.<br /> <br /> Whetstone was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and has been photographing and writing about the relationship between man and nature since earning a degree in zoology from Duke University in 1990. After receiving his Master of Fine Arts in photography from Yale in 2001, he was awarded the prestigious Sakier Prize for photography. His work has been exhibited internationally and reviewed in The Village Voice, New York Times, New Yorker Magazine, and the Los Angeles Times. Whetstone teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.<br /> <br /> GAINESVILLE EXHIBIT<br /> <br /> "Constructing the Past," an exhibit of landscapes by John Cleaveland curated by Dr. Michael Kemling, opens Feb. 19 in the Roy C. Moore Art Gallery on UNG's Gainesville Campus. Cleaveland and Kemling will speak at 2 p.m. on Feb. 19 at the gallery, and the presentation will be followed by a reception.<br /> <br /> "This exhibition of John Cleaveland's paintings examines the conceit that the landscape is our greatest steward of the past," Kemling said. "Cleaveland not only records his environment, but also constructs and reconstructs the past by often placing time-worn buildings within sprawling vistas of the South."<br /> <br /> Cleaveland received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Georgia (UGA) and held a graduate assistantship in the studies abroad program in Cortona, Italy. He has exhibited his work at the Albany Museum of Art, UGA, Madison Cultural Center, and the Lyndon House Art Center. His paintings are part of the collections of the Morris Museum of Art, 3-M Co., Bessemer Trust, and the Alabama Power Co.<br /> <br /> "Constructing the Past" will be on view through March 25.<br /> For more information about UNG's galleries, including hours of operation and current shows, visit the website at http://ung.edu/art-galleries/.