The Lyndon House Arts Center is pleased to announce the opening of Refusal of the Call, a two-person exhibition of large-scale paintings and ceramic sculpture by Sarah Flinn and Eleanor Foy, on view in the Ronnie Lukasiewicz Gallery from October 29, 2026, through January 2, 2027. An artist reception is scheduled for Thursday, October 29, 2026, from 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

Refusal of the Call pairs two artists' bodies of work that engage ideas of stage setting and iconic storytelling. Sarah Flinn's large-scale landscape paintings were originally commissioned for the National Mounted Warrior Museum in Killeen, Texas. The paintings shown here are devoid of human presence, their elongated horizontal formats hauntingly empty and charged with the tension of anticipated action. These backdrops recall the historic cycloramas that traveled from city to city during the nineteenth century, providing immersive entertainment that foreshadowed the contemporary IMAX theater.

Flinn's stage paintings become the setting for Eleanor Foy's ceramic sculptures. Simultaneously inspired by the Dutch tapestry series The Hunt of the Frail Stag and Looney Tunes characters, Foy's animals seem transported from an imagined realm shaped by dreams, memories, and pop culture. Long interested in the simultaneous camp and desolation of Western films, Foy synthesizes references that span five centuries, creating new animal forms with their own implied mythology.

In Refusal of the Call, Flinn's cinematic landscapes become the site of the viewer's own journey, while Foy's animals act as guides, obstacles, or companions along the way. The resulting narrative unfolds as an interplay of theatricality, mass media, and personal discovery.

All exhibitions at Lyndon House Arts Center are free of charge and open to the public.  Exhibitions are on view during regular gallery hours Tuesday and Thursday 10:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m., Wednesday, Friday and Saturday 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.  Children must be accompanied by an adult.  The Lyndon House Arts Center is closed on Saturdays when there is a  University of Georgia home football game.

For more information, please call 706-613-3623 or visit www.accgov.com/exhibits.  Lyndon House Arts Center, located at 211 Hoyt Street, is a facility of the Athens-Clarke County Leisure Services Department.