MACON, Ga. — McEachern Art Center (the MAC) will present Transformations: Layers of Time and Self, an exhibition of abstract quilted works by artist and Mercer Professor Emerita Marian Zielinski. The exhibition opens with a free public reception on Friday, Oct. 2, and remains on view through mid-November.
In Transformations: Layers of Time and Self, Zielinski brings together abstract quilted works that explore memory, place, identity and the accumulation of lived experience. Constructed through a process of digital layering and stitching, Zielinski’s compositions combine photography, drawing, painting and printmaking with the traditions of fiber and quilting. Shapes drawn from nature, architecture, language, shadows, sound and silence are reorganized into shifting networks of grids, patterns and layered forms.
Throughout the exhibition, figure and ground continually move in and out of focus. Forms appear to emerge, dissolve, overlap and transform, moving between the recognizable and the imagined. Color, texture and repetition become tools for considering how experience is constructed over time. The resulting works function simultaneously as abstractions, maps, landscapes and visual narratives — tracing connections between the personal and the collective.
Zielinski’s multidisciplinary approach reflects a life shaped by theatre, literature, philosophy, music, art, and the social and natural worlds around her. Her decades of work as a scenographer remain visible in her sensitivity to composition, spatial relationships, movement and the way individual elements contribute to a larger visual experience.
The exhibition also marks a meaningful return to Mercer University. Zielinski joined Mercer in 1982 as a set, costume, and lighting designer and technical director and later became a professor of theatre. During her career at Mercer, she designed more than 150 theatrical productions before retiring from theatre in 2016 as professor emerita. She has since devoted her practice to two- and three-dimensional visual art while remaining an active artist within the Macon community.
Presented in conjunction with the inauguration of Mercer University’s 19th president, Penny L. Elkins, Ph.D., Transformations: Layers of Time and Self celebrates the work of an artist whose own history is deeply connected to both Mercer and Macon. At a moment of transition for the University, the exhibition considers transformation not as a single event, but as an ongoing process — the layering of histories, experiences, relationships and perspectives that continually shape who we are and what we become.
“Marian Zielinski’s work feels especially meaningful to present at this moment. Her history is deeply connected to Mercer and to Macon, and Transformations reflects the way our identities are built over time — through memory, place, relationships and experience. As Mercer enters a new chapter with President Penny Elkins, this exhibition offers a thoughtful reminder that transformation is rarely a single moment; it is an ongoing process of layering, change and becoming,” said Johnny Cohen, Director of the McEachern Art Center and Lecturer of Art.
The opening reception on Friday, Oct. 2, includes beverages and a brief artist talk by Zielinski at approximately 6:30 p.m. Doors open at 4 p.m., and the reception runs from 6-8 p.m.
Established in 2019, the McEachern Art Center, commonly called The MAC, is Mercer University’s contemporary art space in downtown Macon. Serving as the front porch of Mercer’s Art + Design Department, The MAC is both a public gallery and a creative hub, offering exhibition and studio space for Mercer students while remaining open to the broader community. Its mission is to advance emerging artists and offer the community a place to contemplate art with care. The MAC is located at 332 Second St., Macon. Learn more at macmacon.com.
