Khalilah Birdsong, Sunset’s Shadow, 2017, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 inches

Khalilah Birdsong: Siren’s Call

ON VIEW: November 11, 2017 - January 13, 2018

OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, November 11, 6 – 9 PM

 Atlanta, Georgia – HATHAWAY is proud to present Siren’s Call, a solo exhibition by Khalilah Birdsong.

Khalilah Birdsong is a painter with a studio practice based on Maui, Hawaii and in Atlanta, Georgia. She has had solo exhibitions in Cincinnati, Ohio and Atlanta, Georgia.  Her 2016 solo exhibition at the Cincinnati Art Underground was reviewed in Cincinnati CityBeat.  Birdsong has paintings in private and corporate collections, including commissioned works.  Two of her paintings were recently acquired by the City of Atlanta for the new Martin Luther King, Jr. Natatorium Center.  Khalilah’s work can be found in President Barack Obama’s private collection, which is being considered for his Presidential Library.  A fifteen-year veteran of the Film and Television industry, Khalilah is the Senior Director of Communications & Engagement at Tyler Perry Studios, where she has worked in various aspects of the organization for a decade.

I am interested in survival and resurgence. Distress, weathering is palpable on the canvas, but so is reawakening. I build layers up and then take them away to create a painting that is, ultimately, whole.  The process of layering and stripping builds contusions, bumps and raw ridges, but also reveals patches of older, more forgotten colors. Every painting is an experience through process, which translates to the canvas to create a story that can only be experienced visually. I work in a variety of media and scales, and experiment with a range of processes. My paintings explore the dynamic interplay of color, depth and line.  The symbols, both created and referential, point to an ethereal realm from which they were created, and later realized through a digital process. The installation of pu’olo represents a channeling of Hawaiian tradition, created with an interior of recycled paper molded with plaster wrap and enclosed by hand-dyed fabrics.