Heather Bird Harris & Joel Silverman

Field Notes

February 26 - March 26

Field Notes

Heather Bird Harris & Joel Silverman

Opening Reception: Thursday, February 26, 6 - 9 pm

Artist Talk: Saturday, March 14, 3 pm

The Swan Coach House Gallery is pleased to present Field Notes, an exhibition featuring Atlanta-based artists, Heather Bird Harris and Joel Silverman. The exhibition will be on view through March 26. Field Notes is curated by emerging guest curator, EC Flamming.

Heather Bird Harris and Joel Silverman invite us to pause, engage, and look deeper at the world around us. Their works function as interactive meditations on time, place, and perception, layering not only earth and pigment, but memory, history, and the shifting ways we make meaning.

Both artists approach geographical histories with reverence and urgency, using materials and processes that honor natural rhythms. Harris often works with clay, silt, and other site-specific matter, embedding those materials along with their inherent stories into the surface of her paintings. Silverman’s photographs and assemblages draw attention to the unnoticed, prompting questions about our pre-existing narratives. Together, their practices encourage critical thinking: not only about how environments change, but how our perception changes with them. What stories are embedded in a landscape? How many ways can we understand and experience the same moment, and what can be found in such excavations?

In this exhibition, Silverman presents five multi-media “portals” that consider different historical events through a variety of perspectives and seek to activate the senses of the viewer. Harris will show paintings that play with the notion of “time signatures” of flora and fauna, as well as a video installation and materials relevant to her process.

In an age of distraction and misinformation, Harris and Silverman offer a necessary recalibration. Their work reminds us that our environments are not static backdrops. They are a living archive shaped by time, distorted by narrative, and always inviting us to look again.

This exhibition is sponsored by Tracey DeRosa, Karen H’Doubler, and Wanda Hopkins.

Joel Silverman, time portal: atlanta zero mile post (2026)
lidargraph: atlanta gulch

FAF is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the visual arts in Atlanta. Founded in 1965, FAF supports cultural programming and individual artists through grants and a variety of programs.