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.
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”.
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.
