Atlanta artist Joe Peragine is having a great week. The day after his most recent exhibition opened at Marcia Wood Gallery, Georgia State University formally announced him as the new director of the Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design, effective July 1, 2018.
Peragine [pear-uh-genie] has been on the GSU faculty since 1996, variously serving as a visiting instructor, director of graduate studies, director of undergraduate studies, foundations coordinator, and his current position of professor in drawing, painting, and printmaking.
“I am thrilled and honored to take on the position of director of the Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design,” said Peragine. “I have big shoes to fill. I have had the pleasure of working for five previous directors, Larry Walker, John McWilliams, Ralph Gilbert, Cheryl Goldsleger and of course, most recently, Michael White … My goal is to continue this trajectory by responding to the needs of a new generation of young artists and scholars and make the school a model for twenty-first century art education.”
Peragine earned his BFA from the University of Georgia and his MFA in drawing and painting from Georgia State University. His works have been shown at Art in General in New York City, the Palm Beach ICA, the Cheekwood Museum of Art in Nashville, the Zuckerman Museum of Art and others. His public art project, Brute Neighbors, for the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport earned him the Atlanta Urban Design Commission Award of Excellence for Public Art and was selected as one of the best public art projects in 2001 by Art in America magazine [the installation was removed in 2016; read our story here]. Peragine was recently invited to travel to Beijing to exhibit work and participate in the Art and Science International Exhibition and Symposium hosted by Tsing Hua University and the National Museum of Fine Art of China.
