Let’s be honest: Savannah’s art scene can be confusing, even to locals. There are groupings of galleries and art studios here and there, but it’s not easy to succinctly state where folks should go to see the best creativity that the city has to offer. Fortunately, my vantage point as arts columnist doesn’t require me to be succinct, and I’m here to help.
Here at the Savannah Morning News, we’ve recently created a handy Gallery Guide that we’ll be updating regularly, but for a more narrative rundown of what the city has to offer, read on.
Where to go for cutting-edge contemporary art
If you’re looking to see contemporary art that is representative of not just Savannah but of the entire Southeast, there are two can’t-miss stops: Laney Contemporary and Sulfur Studios.
Laney Contemporary is well off the beaten path, housed on two levels in a beautiful Brutalist building west of downtown Savannah at 1810 Mills B Lane Blvd.. Its chief curator and gallery namesake Susan Laney is widely considered to be one of the most exciting curators working in the region, a sentiment reinforced time and time again with each new show the gallery puts on. Big name Savannah-based artists like Katherine Sandoz, Betsy Cain, and Marcus Kinney are represented alongside important regional artists including Curtis Patterson, Namwon Choi, and Jiha Moon.
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Laney Contemporary is also famous for their mirrored room, a back of the gallery art space with walls and ceiling covered in mirrors. Over the years it’s proven to be a challenge for artists to contend with, but when the installations hit, as was the case when Atlanta-based multidisciplinary artist Michael Scoggins hung numerous oversized paper airplanes from the ceiling for his exhibition Goose, it can become a memorable art-viewing experience that one simply can’t get anywhere else.
Sulfur Studios is an art hub operated by local non-profit ARTS Southeast, located in the heart of the artsy Starland District at 2301 Bull St. The space includes The Ellis Gallery, the organization’s On::View Residency and Artist Incubator areas, as well as numerous studios occupied by some of Savannah’s most interesting emerging artists.
Sulfur Studios/ARTS Southeast is one of the region’s great artistic success stories, growing from a single studio occupied by co-founder Jennifer Moss into one of the premiere art spaces in the region. The main gallery has exhibited Savannah-based artists that appear destined for international acclaim, like Gabe Torres and Lisa D. Watson, while their On::View Residency space has featured emerging creatives from as far away as Japan and Germany. They’ve also shown a proclivity to highlight artists of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community as a part of their regular programming.
Beyond Laney Contemporary and Sulfur Studios, Cleo the Project Space (at 915 B Montgomery St.) and Location Gallery (251 Bull Street, inside Austin Hill Realty) are worth a visit for those seeking contemporary art in Savannah. Both are located downtown north of Forsyth Park.
Like ARTS Southeast, Cleo the Project Space is a non-profit, meaning they tend towards exhibiting artists who are making interesting work first and foremost, rather than showing artists whose work sells. Gallery Director Jeanette McCune also often looks outside of Savannah for emerging artists to showcase, meaning that the space is regularly displaying work by folks no one else in town is even considering.
Location Gallery, on the other hand, is most definitely a place where buying art is part of the experience, with a propensity towards group shows with upwards of 20-30 local artists responding to a theme. Lead curator Peter Roberts, a talented artist in his own right, has built enviable lists of both proficient artists and willing buyers, meaning that the exhibitions in the space have great art that sells, usually quickly.
Outside of those four main spaces, Studio Capilla (806 E. 31st St.), also in the Starland District, and The Collage (48 Posey St.), situated in Midtown Savannah, are occasionally places to see great contemporary art. Each space is project-oriented, however, so art lovers who hope to catch one of their events should monitor their respective Instagram accounts. Capilla’s Things Removed by Samantha Mack at the end of 2023 was my favorite exhibition of that year, and The Collage’s Sunday Supper music and art mash-ups are always a good time, so both spaces are worth the extra effort.
Local artists making local art
For more than three decades, City Market has been the most reliable place to find local artists making work reflective of the region they live in. Although the peak of the market’s influence on the Savannah art scene is well in the past, exciting contemporary artists like Brian MacGregor, Tafy LaPlanche, and Bobby Bagley all have spaces in the Art Center, and Signature Gallery has been showcasing a variety of talented creatives for over thirty years.
The area in and around City Market is also the best place in Savannah to find Gullah art, and sweetgrass basket-weaver Jery B. Taylor has a studio at the Art Center. Famed Gullah artist Sabree also once had a space amongst the numerous art businesses there too, before moving into the location previously occupied by Tiffani Taylor Gallery at 11 Whitaker St.
Black artists from other cultural backgrounds feature heavily in the northernmost point of the Historic District as well, with notable creators like award-winning watercolorist (and former Telfair #art912 Gallery artist) William Kwamena-Poh and Haitian-born painter Alix Baptiste both having been fixtures downtown for large portions of their respective careers.
Heading south from City Market are two other local-centric art spaces: Kobo Gallery (33 Barnard St.) and Savannah Cultural Arts Center Gallery (201 Montgomery St.).
Kobo Gallery is an artist collective that opened in 2007, and the list of artists currently on its roster is impressive. Amongst the standouts are monk-turned-painter Daniel E. Smith, photographers Joy Dunigan and David Kaminsky, and sculptor Dicky Stone. Antoine de Villiers also showcases her figurative paintings in the space, powerful pieces that alone make Kobo worth a visit. Unfortunately, Kobo will close its brick-and-mortar at the end of June, and another iteration of the co-op will surface in the future.
The gallery inside Savannah’s Cultural Art Center has also become a place known for it’s high quality local-centric art shows, thanks in large part to the work of under-appreciated curator Antonia B. Larkin. She’s done an excellent job of creating exhibitions that are particularly relevant to Savannahians, including two showcases featuring the work of artists from the SOY X SOY Latin/Hispanic/Indigenous creative collective, as well as numerous exhibitions speaking specifically to the black experience, like the recent group show Boundless.
Rent to Own
There are too many great artists in Savannah for everyone to be represented by galleries like Laney Contemporary or to show at spaces like Location Gallery. That’s where rental galleries come in.
A good rental gallery should be carefully curated, supportive of the artists they show, and be cost effective enough that it gives whoever is showing in the space a reasonable chance at coming out on top financially. Their contacts and reputation should ensure that the artist doesn’t have to do all of the work to get people to come to the exhibition, and they should take a smaller percentage of sales than a more traditional gallery, since the creative is required to make an initial investment.
There are currently three galleries that meet most or all of these requirements: Gallery 2424 (2424 Whitaker St.) and Cedar House Gallery (122 E. 36th St.) in the Starland District; and ArtStryngs Gallery downtown, at 530 E. Liberty St.
Of the three, Gallery 2424, while less than a year old, has proven itself to be the cream of the rental gallery crop. The brainchild of Telfair Museums’ Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Erin Dunn and her husband Ben Walke, the gallery mixes pay-for shows by SCAD thesis students and professional artists, with invitational group and solo exhibitions. Dunn’s background, however, ensures that quality-wise, the line between those who pay to show and those who were invited to show for free is virtually non-existent.
Recent highlights at the space include the invitational group exhibition One By One, which featured exquisite works by local stalwarts Jordan Fitch Mooney and Marcela Sinnett, among others, and fiber artist Jennifer Moss’ Erosion Patterns, her first local solo show in four years.
That isn’t to say that Cedar House Gallery and ArtStryngs Gallery aren’t worth a visit, quite to the contrary: Cedar House in particular has been, and continues to be, a jumping off place for many local artists who would eventually go on to do bigger things. Gabe Torres, for example, had her first Savannah solo exhibition at the space, and self-proclaimed “polyocular” painter Thomas Mitz has shown at the gallery as well. Recently, up-and-coming local painter Jazz Howington wowed audiences with her exhibition Incandescent Adoration, and the artist maintains a space at Cedar House Gallery.
Interestingly, one of the paintings from Howington’s Adoration also won Best in Show at ArtStryngs Gallery’s first group show, HeartStryngs. The Liberty Street space is still too new to know what it will ultimately be to the Savannah art community (it just opened in February of 2024), but if folks like Howington (and other artists from that show, such as Peter Roberts, Caleb Williamson, and Tamara Isaac-Harrington) are what visitors can expect going forward, ArtStryngs will be worth regular visits for those who love art.
Eat, drink, and be arty
It used to be that showing art in a cafe or restaurant was considered a step down from showing in a gallery, but that sentiment has become outdated. According to Getty.edu, the average art museum-goer spends approximately 30 seconds in front of a piece of artwork before moving onto the next composition. Unless you are annual hotdog eating champ Joey Chestnut, it’s unlikely you’ll spend that short of time eating your meal or drinking a cup of coffee at a local cafe or restaurant, meaning the engagement time between viewer and artwork is many times what it would be at a typical gallery.
Both the Sentient Bean (13 E. Park Ave.) and the Gallery Espresso (234 Bull St.) are located near the popular Forsyth Park, the former on the south end, the latter just a few blocks up from the north end. This means that there is a near constant stream of customers in and out of each space, ensuring that every exhibition is seen by hundreds, if not thousands, of people. Moreover, both places have eclectic and diverse clientele in terms of race, age, and sexual identity, and cater to tourists and locals alike.
For years, the Sentient Bean’s art shows were curated by the folks over at Sulfur Studios, ensuring that the quality of the work was top notch, and that shows were well-hung and curated. When Sulfur Studios moved under the umbrella of the non-profit ARTS Southeast, however, the new model no longer allowed them to continue that endeavor.
Fortunately, AJ Perez, one of Sulfur’s founders, was brought on to independently run shows in the space, and high-quality exhibitions have continued unabated. Both Maxx Feist and Zay Hutchins, for example, have shown in the space recently, and both exhibitions could just have easily been on the walls of some fancy gallery. In both cases, the artists sold work at lower commission rates, making it an ideal place for artists to sell, and giving art buyers the peace of mind that the majority of their investment is going into the artists pockets.
The Gallery Espresso, meanwhile, has been an art space in a coffee shop from the get-go. Gallery Director and café owner Jessica Barnhill and her mother Judy Davis have been putting up exhibitions during the entirety of the 30+ years that the shop has been in existence, and during that span have showcased some creatives that have gone on to become nationally and internationally important. That list includes Katherine Sandoz, one of Savannah’s most notable contemporary artists.
Coffee shops aren’t the only non-traditional gallery spaces operating in Savannah: In the Starland District, both brewery/restaurant Hop Atomica (535 E. 39th St.) and burger joint Green Truck Neighborhood Pub (2430 Habersham St.) feature regular art exhibitions, and high quality ones at that.
Green Truck has partnered with ARTS Southeast on the Drive Thru Art Box, a literal vintage drive-thru restaurant menu display case that’s been converted into an evolving art installation space. Each iteration of the Art Box is unique, and sometimes brilliant, as was the case with Will Penny’s Small Talk, a display which included a modded and AI-powered Big Mouth Billy Bass that visitors could converse with.
Other artists to contribute works to the one-of-a-kind art space include Kelly Boehmer, who built a fuzzy pink Beer Garden in the box, and Peter Roberts, who created dozens of small window boxes featuring local art luminaries, window boxes that he opened one per day for over 30 days from the end of 2022 through the beginning of 2023.
Hop Atomica, meanwhile, has converted its western wall into a gallery space of sorts, a program that began back in 2021 at the urging of renowned local artist and curator Stephanie Forbes. The first two exhibitions of work held in the space were by Lisa D. Watson and Kip Bradley, and the eatery has shown no signs of slowing down. More recent exhibitions have featured internationally-recognized muralist Juliana Lupacchino and ink and watercolor painter Tamara Garvey, so it’s a safe bet that whatever the space has on its walls is worth checking out.
