Meet these nationally honored young artists from Columbus, and learn how they emerged
The next generation of nationally honored Columbus artists has emerged, and Temple Douglass and Jack Flournoy are leading the way.
Douglass, 22, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the University of Georgia this spring and is preparing to move to Philadelphia to pursue her art career. She attended Clubview Elementary School and Richards Middle School and graduated from Hardaway High School as valedictorian.
Her charcoal drawing titled, “Taking Care of Myself” is among the 40 works selected from more than 700 college student submissions nationwide as finalists for the 2023 AXA Art Prize. The work will be exhibited at the New York Academy of Art in November, when the winner and runner-up will be announced.
Flournoy, 19, graduated from the Asheville School this spring and plans to major in fine arts at Tufts University, starting this fall. He attended Brookstone School from kindergarten through 11th grade.
For his oil painting on linen titled “Unfolding Consciousness,” Flournoy is among the 14 high school students nationwide to receive a 2023 Scholastic Gold Medal and an American Visions Award (chosen from the medalists) out of more than 300,000 submissions of art and writing. Scholastic celebrated the national winners during a June ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York. Their winning pieces are on exhibit at the Richard Robinson Scholastic Building in New York.
Affirmation and gratitude
The national recognition is affirmation for Douglass.
“It was really cool for it be something completely on my own, not with any connections or anything,” she said. “It was really good for my confidence and my art speaking for myself, regardless of who I am because it was all anonymous.”
Flournoy is thankful for the national recognition, he said, but wants to focus on what’s next.
“I try to keep what I’m doing unaffected by awards,” he said. “… Going with my family (to the ceremony) and seeing them so happy, that was really a gift. But there’s so much work to be done in my life, and I can’t let this slow me down.”
The Ledger-Enquirer interviewed Douglass and Flournoy in the Columbus State University Bo Bartlett Center. Both have been students of Bartlett, a renowned realist painter based in Columbus and Maine.
Bartlett described Douglass and Flournoy as “uniquely talented young artists” with “their very own vision, their very own way of seeing and transcribing our world.”
Bartlett praised their diligence and earnestness.
“It is rare to take oneself seriously and commit to developing one’s natural gifts,” he said.
Flournoy cherishes the hard work ethic he learned from Bartlett.
“Bo has made it clear: If you want to get to a great level, you have to work your (tail) off,” he said.
Douglass is grateful to Bartlett for showing her a “holistic approach” to art, she said.
“We would draw and paint, but he also would talk to us about drinking enough water and tell us stories about talking to strangers and getting to know people in your community,” she said. “That eventually goes into the art and informs the themes and the people that you can create with.”
Douglass also credits wife-and-husband art teachers Katharine Jones Black of Clubview and Scott Black of Hardaway for helping her craft. Flournoy adds acclaimed professional artists Julianna Wells and Suzanne Reed Fine to his list of Columbus art teachers.
Fine, a watercolor painter, influenced Douglass as well. She was a presenter at the Clubview career day when Douglass, then 8, realized art was something she could do professionally.
“I wasn’t familiar with any professional artists before that,” Douglass said. “That was my first time seeing that as a possibility, and I kind of latched onto that. I don’t know if I was necessarily good at it then, but it was my favorite thing to do.”
Douglass and Flournoy certainly are good at it now.
“Their awards are well deserved, as they each possess talent but more importantly, a drive to keep pushing the envelope,” Fine said. “They each possess a quiet contemplation and seer of life that invites the viewer into their worlds. They have the depth of an old soul with the freshness of youth. I’m certain this is one of many honors they will have.”
Temple Douglass
Douglass’ work has been exhibited at the UGA Lamar Dodd School of Art Galleries, Ohio River South and Columbus State University, published in Artivist Magazine, Stillpoint Literary Magazine and Black Art Magazine, and featured on the set of the BET show “Games People Play” during Season 2.
Her parents provided chances for discovering joy in art, such as attending events and camps at the Columbus Museum and CSU.
“When they saw I was clicking with that,” she said, “they did whatever they could to nurture it and find other opportunities to learn outside of school.”
Feedback from friends at Richards Middle School further motivated Douglass.
“I would draw things and show them to people in class, and they would react,” she said. “They were always excited to see the next thing I made and told me how great it was. I guess then I internalized that I was really good at this and doing something that other people around me aren’t really doing.”
Douglass prefers drawing instead of painting because of its “preciseness and mechanics,” she said.
Her drawing that became an AXA Art Prize finalist is a self-portrait collage of three images showing what she calls “the cyclical nature of depression and the idea of taking care of yourself.”
“Sometimes you feel like you can’t do anything, but there’s a part of you that has to prepare for those times to come,” she said. “So there’s the me that’s doing my work and getting that done as fast as I can before I’m out again.
“Then there’s the me that’s cleaning up the room because you get really lost in yourself and there’s clothes and stuff everywhere, and at some point, you have to fix that. Then there’s also some ideas like being annoyed with myself because I’m not doing what I need to be doing. There’s also the compassionate one that’s just trying to be there and understand what’s going on.”
Her ultimate goal is to continue creating art that “makes me happy and shows the things that I’m thinking about in a way that’s satisfactory to me.”
Jack Flournoy
Flournoy refers to painting as “my life.”
“There are many reasons. It’s kind of like this storm of energy,” he explained. “I guess some of the reasons are more noble and some are less noble. But on one level, painting is what I have to give to this world. On another level, my most intense, deep, emotional, spiritual experiences all surround painting. . . . I’m totally obsessed, and I have to do it.”
On his 12th birthday, his parents took him to Bartlett’s studio.
“We did this drawing together with his wife, Betsy (Eby), and that kind of started it,” Flournoy said. “My parents have been really awesome about exposing me to the fine arts.”
Bartlett advised him to create art every day, and he’s done exactly that ever since.
“I don’t think I could do anything else,” Flournoy said.
Bartlett chose Flournoy in 2021 as his partner in the Columbus Museum’s exhibition pairing established and emerging artists in the Chattahoochee Valley. Flournoy’s work also has been exhibited at the Bo Bartlett Center and the Asheville Art Museum.
Flournoy calls his award-winning “Unfolding Consciousness” oil painting “a very visceral self-portrait.”
He is reluctant to articulate any message he wants to convey to viewers of his art.
“I try not to talk too much about it,” he said. “If it does its job, it will resonate, and I won’t have to say anything. … I just kept painting and repainting it until I got the effect I wanted.”
The effect Flournoy wanted, he said, is “deep physicality.”
Asked for his ultimate goal, Flournoy said with a smile, “You’ll see.”
Continuing a Columbus tradition
For an artist, the sunlight in Columbus “is gorgeous and awakens the senses of the sensitive soul,” Bartlett said.
And the success Douglass and Flournoy have achieved on the national level, and the lessons and mentoring they have received from established Columbus artists, are part of another local tradition, Bartlett said, “continuing a lineage of creatives, such as Alma Thomas and Amy Sherald. … Columbus supports its own. Columbus understands the value of art and encourages those who want to make and create.”
“The families, schools and churches embrace the creative urge and support it,” Bartlett said. “… It takes a village. And Jack and Temple, with their continued hard work, are going to make this village proud.”
