Bio // Cathy ByrdAn Atlanta-based art critic, curator and travel writer, Cathy Byrd is presently gallery director and a faculty member at Georgia State University's School of Art and Design. Byrd's essays and reviews have appeared in Art Papers, Sculpture, Art in America, Art & Antiques, Catalyst, the Atlanta Journal & Constitution and Creative Loafing, among other publications. She earned an MFA from Savannah College of Art and Design in 1995 where her thesis show featured experimental artists' books. From 1998 to 2001, Byrd was guest curator at The Agnes Scott College Dalton Gallery in Decatur, Georgia. She organized eight contemporary art exhibitions in the Dalton Gallery, including Moving Picture Show, A Matter of Scale and Book Unbound, an international artists' books show.Byrd's main objective at GSU is to establish the school's gallery space as one of Atlanta's premiere visual arts venues. She is principal organizer and chair of the Visual Arts Network of Atlanta, an organization established to promote the visual arts in metropolitan Atlanta. Since her appointment in August 2001, she has made the gallery an active participant in art-inspired intitiatives such as First Thursdays Downtown Arts Walk, Atlanta Celebrates Photography and the National Black Arts Festival. She organized solo shows for the late Thomasine Bradford and former School of Art and Design director John McWilliams, as well as girl, a national photo and video based exhibition about young women. In 2003, Byrd is co-facilitating Pulse Field, an international sound art show, along with Routes and Journeys, an international printmaking exhibition from the Caversham Centre in South Africa and PG-13: Male Adolescent Identity in the Age of Video Culture, a collection of video installations by Janet Biggs and Barbara Pollack. Contact information: Cathy Byrd Gallery Director School of Art & Design Gallery Georgia State University cathybyrd@gsu.edu 404.651.0489 |