Artist Joan E. Gardner has a questioning nature.

“I love art as … beauty for beauty’s sake,” Gardner, a resident of Sherrills Ford, said. “I’m a very socially engaged person and always have been in my adult life.”

Gardner’s artworks that question views on humanity, religion and social acceptance are being showcased at a solo exhibit at Paul Hunter Speagle’s ATAC Gallery at 1020 3rd Ave Dr NW, Hickory, NC 28601.

The name of the show is “Examine the Past, Create the Future.”

“Where do we come from, what are we and where are we going?,” Gardner said, citing a painting of the same name by 19th-century French artist Paul Gauguin. “That would be the main question (that ties the exhibit pieces together).

“We’re at a place where we need to move beyond our simplistic, binary thinking, like ‘I’

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