Exhibit: Local Artists Find a Home in Dunwoody Village Gallery

Artists in the Dunwoody Fine Arts Association lead busy lives but members have a special bond, says Soodi Kick.

“We all have some kind of united momentum in doing something together,” she said.

Her artwork is among nearly 80 paintings in a DFAA gallery in Dunwoody Village shopping center on Chamblee Dunwoody Road. Regency Centers property management company donated the space to the non-profit, said member Julie Marshall. Members painted the space and set up the exhibit, which is open 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Tuesdays-Saturdays, through April.

The exhibit includes realistic, conceptual and abstract artwork. Kick describes her painting, “The Red Living Room” as conceptual mixed media. A plethora of objects in the painting draw you in, particularly a vase holding flowers which Kick created in the image a ceramic vase that her husband made at their Brookhaven home.

“It’s a torso,” said Kick, of the vase. “[The painting] has bits and pieces of my memory and feelings around where I live.”

Artist Julie Marshall grew up in Pensacola, Fla., and is inspired by water. Her artwork at the gallery includes paintings of oysters with watercolors and an image of waterfalls from Highlands, N.C.

Art is a passion outside of Kick and Marshall’s work lives. Kick and her husband, Mark, own Nuts N’ Berries health store and café in Brookhaven, and Marshall, who lives in Sandy Springs, works as a graphic design artist.

"10 years ago I joined [the DFAA] and then got busy with the kids," Marshall said. "Within the last two years I became active again. This has been really fun and educational helping to get the gallery going."

The gallery is located behind Fresh Market and beside New Music School in the shopping center.