December 6-28, 2024
Opening reception on Friday, December 6, 2024; 5:30p-8P
Caleigh’s Spoken Word Open Mic Night on Wednesday, December 11, 2024; 5:30p-8p
All artworks are for sale in person or online. See the online gallery to purchase through the Bells Gallery website.
Bells Gallery is pleased to present Anthology, a solo exhibition by artist Caleigh Parsons, on view from December 6 to 28, 2024. This exhibition invites viewers to explore a body of work where visual and literary art are intertwined, reflecting the artist’s effort to unify her dual artistic practices.
Anthology is more than a collection of artworks; it is a narrative intertwined through paint and prose that springs from the artist’s deeply personal sources—childhood memories, teenage traumas, and adulthood lessons—conveying these necessary milestones through visual and literary representations.
Anthology’s literary body connects the visual arts body, binding two tangible yet abstract ideas to create a feeling. The artist challenges the viewer to consider the power of language and its ability to shape our perception, inviting us to step into her world and reflect on our own. She offers Anthology as a place of introspection for the reader and viewer. This body of work is one that confronts her past, which has reckoned with her current reality. The artist asks the audience to consider their own associations with Anthology through their lived experiences.
“I began writing poetry as a young child and continued doing so through college and into early adulthood. My degree in Language Arts allowed me the opportunity to teach creative writing to high school students for five years. After getting married and having children, my writing practice became stagnant, though I wrote poetry in my head constantly, even in my sleep. Though I didn’t keep a journal, I kept notes in various places with phrases and words and ideas that I felt should be written down, just in case…
Alongside my love of poetry as a child tagged my love of art. I grew up in a home where my grandmother’s art hung from the walls, and though I desired to be able to paint the way my grandmother did, I feared I couldn’t and didn’t attempt it until much later in life. However, I began collecting art from local and emerging artists in my early 20s and have had an affinity for it ever since. In my 30s and early 40s, I attempted painting but gave up quickly because of the words I repeated to myself over and over again: “I’m not an artist.” In 2021, at 45 years old, I disrupted that narrative by trying once again, and I finally found my voice.“
Caleigh Parsons is a visual artist based in Dothan, Alabama.
She paints intuitively with mixed media on canvas, wood, and paper. Visually, she’s always been drawn to contrasting composition and colors. When she paints, she is compelled to combine the unexpected, even if it doesn’t make sense. Because that’s what makes sense to her.
She is the co-founder of Alabama Roots Fine Arts Show, the co-founder and Vice President of Art in Public Places, and founder of the former art collective The Untrained Edit.
CV
FESTIVALS
2022 Exhibitor, The Loop Music and Art Festival, Dothan, Alabama
2023 Exhibitor, The Loop Music and Art Festival, Dothan, Alabama
2024 Exhibitor, The Loop Music and Art Festival, Dothan, Alabama
Public Art Participant, Due South Music and Art Festival, Thomasville, Georgia
Exhibitor, Art Room, Greenville, South Carolina
Exhibitor, The Loyola Art Show, Mobile, Alabama
EXHIBITIONS (Group and solo)
2022 (In)Dependent, Bells Gallery, Dothan, Alabama
2023 Micro Moves, Bells Gallery, Dothan, Alabama
2024 Maxine Orange Gallery, Fort Walton Beach, Florida
ESOM Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana
Art on the Mountain, Beersheba Springs, Tennessee
ALABAMA, Bells Gallery, Dothan, Alabama (upcoming)
Alabama Roots, Guntersville, Alabama (upcoming)
Anthology, Bells Gallery, Dothan, Alabama (upcoming)
PUBLICATIONS
2023 GRITS (Girls Raised in the South) Catalogue, contributing writer, Bells Gallery
2023 Canvas Rebel, online publication, featured article, August 28, 2023
2024 Honest Art, podcast, interview, upcoming
RESIDENCY
2021-2024 The Untrained Edit, Dothan, Alabama
WORKSHOPS
2024 Honest Art Workshop, Jodie King, Santa Fe, New Mexico
EDUCATION
1998 BS, Language Arts Education, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama