Just a week after Johnson Center board chair Mack Gibson was honored by the Alabama State Council on the Arts with The Governor’s Arts Award, the Johnson Center will host two award-winning artists at the gallery.

Vicki Pritchett, Johnson Center executive director, said Gibson’s leadership, a visionary board of directors and a talented and creative staff make it possible to bring outstanding artists to the arts center.

“We are excited and honored to open our latest exhibits of the artwork of Kelly Olszyk and Craig Wedderspoon with an artists’ reception from 5 until 7 p.m. Thursday,” Pritchett said. “Everyone is invited to come and view the exhibits and meet these two outstanding young artists. These are two of the most unique exhibits that we have featured. Everybody who has walked through the doors has had one thing to say about both, ‘Wow!’”

Kelly Olszyk is the 2014 TroyFest Best of the Show award winner. Each year’s winner is invited to exhibit his or her work at the Johnson Center in May of the following year.

Olszyk’s paintings are exhibited in the upper gallery of the Johnson Center and command the attention of everyone who walks in the center.

“Kelly’s paintings are bright and colorful and amazing,” Pritchett said. “You can’t not like them.”

Pritchett said that every day she sees something new in Olszyk’s paintings.

“The subjects are portrayed in such an unusual way,” she said. “She has cross-bred a jersey cow with a longhorn bull and the result is the confirmation of a real bull.”

But it’s not just Olszyk’s interesting “take” on her subjects; it’s also the process, Pritchett said. “She lays papier-mâché made with newspaper and paints over the newspaper. She wipes ways enough of the paint that, if you look closely, you can see the newspaper. Her artwork and her way of doing it are unique.”

Olszyk’s paintings are readily recognized by her signature dots, which provide background and substance for her work.

The 2014 TroyFest Best of Show exhibit is sponsored by the Johnson Center, TroyFest and the Troy Arts Council.

Craig Wedderspoon’s exhibit “Oval” is featured in the Johnson Center’s lower gallery.

“Craig, who teaches at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, is an award-winning sculptor and an Alabama State Council on the Arts Fellowship recipient,” Pritchett said. “His sculptures are installed all around the country and we are extremely honored to have his work at the Johnson Center.”

Pritchett said Wedderspoon creates abstract work in both metal and wood and on various scales.

“Those who view Craig’s work are, at first, amazed at geometric order of his work,” she said. “But, when they look closer, they are astonished that anyone could do with metal and wood what he does. He can take something as rigid as metal and turn it into some thing fluid and graceful.”

Pritchett said Wedderspoon’s artistic ability could only be equaled by his craftsmanship.

“To think that he can cut metal and weld it into such wonderful art forms is almost unbelievable,” she said. “His metal sculptures are amazing.”

Wedderspoon’s work with wood is just as impressive.

“I am impressed by how he can take pieces of wood and sculpt ovals that seem to float above the gallery floor,” she said. “He is truly an amazing sculptor.”

The public is invited to the reception for Olszyk and Wedderspoon from 5 until 7 p.m. Thursday at the Johnson Center for the Arts. The artists will be available to talk with gallery visitors about their artwork. Admission is free and light refreshments will be served.