The New York art scene isn't only about New York anymore: across the country, artists are collaborating digitally and virtually; gallerists are looking beyond their own backyards for work; and buyers are venturing to neighborhoods outside of Chelsea and Williamsburg to discover the next art star.
Case in point: Near the railroad tracks on Atlanta's Westside, artist Karen Schwartz paints in her studio. Through the open window, the sound of birds wafts into the space along with shafts of sunlight. When I meet Schwartz for an interview in April, she is preparing for a one-woman show in Brooklyn, New York, and her nearly-finished work surrounds us. Expressionist yet contemporary, the figurative paintings are dark and deliberate, with a sense of humor and a fluidity marked by bats, bunnies and other animal references that flutter, bounce and stomp through her canvases. Schwartz says it required a lot of deep digging to do the "physical and visceral" work of self-discovery that these emotive paintings transmit.