The Rialto Center for the Arts, in partnership with The Sun ATL, presents The Design of Destiny, an exhibition of paintings by Tennessee artist Harry Underwood, curated by Shawn Vinson.
Harry Underwood paints a world that seems strangely familiar even when we know we've never been there.
Palm trees, swimming pools, bicycles, automobiles, modest houses, commercial signs and figures at leisure inhabit landscapes that suggest mid-century postcards, old advertisements and half-remembered vacations. But Underwood isn't simply recreating the past. His scenes are constructions of memory, imagination, longing and invention - an America that might have existed, or perhaps one we only wish had existed.
Look longer and the words begin to take over.
Underwood incorporates handwritten passages directly into his compositions, moving between humor, observation, autobiography and philosophical reflection. The apparent optimism of the imagery is frequently complicated by the text, giving his paintings their distinctive mixture of sincerity, absurdity, melancholy and hope.
A self-taught artist, Underwood was born in Miami in 1969 and grew up near Homestead, Florida. After Hurricane Andrew in 1992, he lived in New Orleans and Austin before settling in Tennessee. While working in construction and as a house painter, he began developing the unusual technique that became his visual language: simplified and repeated imagery rendered primarily in latex house paint, with pencil text and varnish on wood panels.
Underwood began exhibiting his paintings publicly in the early 2000s. His work has since been shown by galleries in the United States, England and France and has appeared for many years at New York's Outsider Art Fair.
Shawn Vinson has represented Underwood in the Southeast since 2019, first introducing his work to Atlanta audiences at Different Trains Gallery in Decatur. Subsequent exhibitions followed at The WADDI in Inman Park and The Sun ATL in Old Fourth Ward.
The Design of Destiny brings Underwood's work to Downtown Atlanta and the newly renovated lobby of the Rialto Center for the Arts as part of the continuing exhibition partnership between the Rialto and The Sun ATL.
Curated by Shawn Vinson, founder and director of The Sun ATL and curator in residence at the Rialto Center for the Arts.
