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The opening reception is in the Meadows lobby gallery and the Wallace Drive campus. Marlon Stallings is a self-taught painter and U.S. Army veteran (Iraq & Afghanistan) based in Jacksonville, Alabama. Stallings' work blends Southern Gothic realism with borderland myth. His paintings capture the fever dream of a man who outlasted friends, foes, and miles, carrying red dirt in his boots and a brush in his hand the whole way. This solo debut at Gadsden State Community College marks his first major exhibition.
Artist Statement:
l began driving west on I-20 in 2018, chasing something the pines couldn't hold. The road took me through Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, across the bridge into Ciudad Juárez, down Mexico 45 through Chihuahua, all the way to the high silence of Durango. Seven years, hundreds of thousands of miles, one tank bleeding into the next.
The works in this show capture the 2 a.m. country store that's already closed when you arrive, the ghost dress still hanging on the line at 4 a.m., the way border lights smear together like wet paint, and the arroyo so quiet you hear your own blood. Rendered in deep blues, bruised ambers, and blood-red accents, they transform familiar landmarks into mythic stations of memory, loss, and survival. The paintings become the last stretch of that road.
Welcome to the fever dream.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Gadsden State Community College, 1001 George Wallace Dr,Gadsden, Alabama, United States
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.
