The Art Selectress

Britt Bass Turner is a Georgia girl. 

Having grown up just north of Atlanta, graduated from UGA, married her high school sweetheart, and begun her career as an artist in Athens, "the South is all I've ever known," she says.

Her inspirations have always been close to home. 

Britt's mother is an interior designer with artist friends, so she grew up surrounded by color swatches, paintings, and proof that careers in art and design are attainable and fruitful. "Being an artist was never this big, scary thing," Britt says.

She is still finding much of her inspiration in nearby sources. "There's a saturation of art and culture based here in the South," she says. "A lot of the artists and designers I love are based here. There's pride in being an artist here, you're part of something!" 

 

Armed with this confidence, Britt "soaks up" aesthetic inspiration everywhere—from blogs to retail stores to art history and contemporary art books—fresh color palettes and creative vignettes are her springboards as she approaches her abstract work. Having graduated in 2011 from UGA with a degree in Art Education and Painting, Britt feels she entered the art and design world at a time of great energy. The web was just bursting with new creative blogs and visual stimulation found on sites such as Pinterest, and the retail market at large had begun to fully embrace modern design. "Walking into West Elm can be just as inspiring to me as opening an art history book," she says. 

Inspired by the same zeitgeist, her creative peers also provide inspiration, especially a stylist friend who creates color palettes for Britt to use in her work. 

Britt holds these catalysts in her mind for just the moment in which begins a piece. From there, though, she lets go of the specific point of inspiration and begins an intuitive, materials-driven process of layering gauche, acrylics, and pastels to create compositions that feel verdant and that will ultimately "look beautiful in a space," she says.

She owes her current abstract work and introduction to GIFA to the local artist and UGA art professor that has served as her mentor—GIFA artist Erin McIntosh.

 Britt says taking classes with Erin helped "free her up" in her work.

It was in learning about Erin's work that Britt found GIFA and made it a goal to become part of the gallery. "Once I saw the other [GIFA] artists, I loved their work too. It became a distant dream to have my work there." 

GIFA is ecstatic to welcome Britt into our cottage of contemporary stars!

Britt and Gregg

Britt and Gallery Manager Sallie