'Invisible Suburbia' Exhibit Begins Feb. 1

Nationally-acclaimed fine-art photographer Sheila Pree Bright will have an exhibition at Barrington Hall in Roswell as part of the 13th Annual Roswell Roots festival. 

Roswell Roots is one of the largest and most comprehensive African-American History celebrations in Georgia and features a variety of exhibits, cultural events and music performances.

The exhibition, titled “Invisible Suburbia,” spotlights middle-class African-American suburban homes—a lifestyle that Bright contends is nearly invisible in the mainstream media. Seven large-scale photographs will be on view February 1-28. Admission to the exhibition is free with regular tour admission to Barrington Hall, 535 Barrington Drive.

“The portraits of African-American middle-class homes in Barrington Hall suggests that history has come full circle,” said exhibition curator Sally Hansell. “Barrington King was the largest slave owner in Roswell, and slaves surely helped construct his beautiful house," she said. "The exhibit foregrounds the rising middle-class African-American home within the context of its bleak origins."

On Sunday, February 16, from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m., Barrington Hall will host a free open house of the exhibition featuring a special artist talk with Sheila Pree Bright at 3:00 p.m. The panel discussion titled “Who’s Suburbia?” will also feature Lonnie King, founder of the Atlanta Student Movement.

Sheila Pree Bright is a fine-arts photographer based in Atlanta. Bright first received national attention after winning the Santa Fe Prize from the Santa Fe Center for Photography in 2006. She has been featured in solo exhibitions at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, as well as the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut.

Pree Bright’s series “Plastic Bodies” was recently featured in Huffington Post (11/25/13). The work is currently part of the traveling art show "Posing Beauty in African-American Culture” and it focuses mostly on women of color, exploring their complex relationships to white beauty standards by combining images of real women's bodies and faces with those of dolls.

For more information on this exhibition or the artist talk call 770-992-1731. For a full listing of Roswell Roots events, visit www.roswellroots.com.