Girls, Girls, Girls: Hagedorn gallery

March is Women’s History Month. So it’s a good fit, then, that Woman’s Image, is currently on view through April 24 at Hagedorn Gallery.

The exhibit showcases a group of known, and less well-known, photographers, as well as a smattering of artists working in other media. The show centers on the complicated and compelling subject of woman. The work displayed on Hagedorn’s bottom floor explores the progression of woman’s image from the aesthetics of her body to pictures searching for the depths of her soul.

Photographs on the second floor explore the idea of “What Defines A Woman.” Here, various female artists struggle with multiple identities.

Highlights:



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  • Morton Broffman’s photographs of Coretta Scott King: In one, she gently kisses Martin Luther King Jr. on the cheek. In the second, she’s pictured with Ethel Kennedy at a rare moment in between MLK’s and Robert Kennedy’s deaths.


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  • Mary Anne Mitchell’s “Lovely Lips:” Mitchell, a local artist, captures a modern woman applying lipstick in her rear-view mirror. It’s at once sublime and mundane.


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  • Dorothy O’Connor: Also an Atlanta artist, O’Connor’s series of photographs chronicles different women in the same room, but each time redecorated to evoke different meanings. You could spend hours pouring over each portrait’s details. In “Green,” O’Connor takes elements of nature and makes them into everyday household items, such as a rug made out of fallen leaves.


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  • Susan Harbage Page: Page embroiders antique, hand-sewn linens with the veiled hopes, desires and dreams of the everywoman: “I hid my successes in the dresser drawer.” “I asked too many questions.” “I could never invite anyone to our house.” “You never knew what kind of mood he would be in.” It’s nostalgic and bittersweet, all at once.


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  • Beth Lilly, “The Oracle @ Wifi:” Give it up for Lilly who put such a wonderful and modern twist on Greek mythology the Oracle at Delphi. Lily’s photos hang in sets of three, each group the answer to a specific question. For example, a butterfly, an open church door and a creepy looking angel statue hang in response to the question: “Did our mother put a hex or curse on the house?”





The show sets out to explore the fragmentation of female identity and its evolution throughout history. While a few of the pieces explore the objectification of women, it’s most successful when it forces you to contemplate your inner self while also seeking to understand other women’s circumstances.

425 Peachtree Hills Ave. NE, #25. 404.492.7718. Gallery Hours:  Mon.-Fri. 10 a.m. -5 p.m., Sat. 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

(Photo Mary Anne Mitchell)