Artist Matt Stromberg is literally creating a stir in the art world by using everything from explosives and rocket fuel to submachine guns in his volatile, nonobjective sculpture. He’s careful to stress, however, that his unique art form is not really about explosives but kinetic energy—more specifically, the release of it. The result is somewhat unpredictable. What is predictable, after he conducts trench warfare across his many canvasses, is his ability to produce interesting and spontaneous mark making—marks created through applied texture that create volume.

Tony Allen, Savannah native and front man for the punk rock band Dead Stays Alive, comes with all the accoutrements of a rock star: blue hair, studded and outrageous jewelry, tats, an entourage, and a killer voice that shakes whatever space, no matter the size, in which he wields a microphone. However, Google his name and more photos of Lindsay Lohan pop up than mention of his music, which, despite not being Jack Johnson catchy, has a decent fan base and, more importantly, is constantly evolving and improving.

Herbert Brito, a lifelong art collector an architecture fanatic, has managed to amass a collection of Andy Warhol originals that tops two dozen pieces. Watch a virtual tour of his home and collection.

Times are changing. Today’s modern working women aren’t confined to a closet of boxy suits and drab skirts anymore. From 9 to 5, these sexy and sophisticated styles are making a splash in the boardroom.

Life-long connoisseur Herbert Brito has amassed an impressive collection of Andy Warhol originals topping two dozen pieces. A constant player in the art-dealing world, he’s also owned works by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Frank Stella. But for Brito the business of collecting is all about heart, not commerce.

Deep in the backwoods of Georgia, equipped with nothing but his creativity and a chainsaw, Thomas Bland creates massive pieces of art. A forester by trade, he’s spent his whole life sizing up logs and lumber, but now he looks at trees from a new perspective

Some visual artists are drawn to Savannah for its beauty, others attended SCAD and stayed on, and others just wound up here. There are as many types of reasons as there are magenta sunrises, golden marshes and historic buildings tinged with the patina that only the passage of time bestows.

Preston Russell had been painting for 40 years before he moved here in the early 1970s. “I previously had never seen anything real like Savannah,” he said. “It blew my socks off. And any place I love, I like to paint.”

That includes France and other places in Europe, but Russell never paints on location. “I’m a studio artist,” he explains. “When I travel, I take photographs not an easel. It takes a week to do a small painting—and up to three months for a major one.”

Russell has sold hundreds of paintings, mostly of people and buildings, interiors and street scenes from Savannah to Paris. Yet he says he didn’t become serious about his work until he settled here, and the first time he felt like a real artist was when he helped co-found Gallery 209 on River Street.

Now one of Savannah’s best-known artists—his works are in Southern museums and in homes throughout the country, and three of them were selected by the French government for the 1976 Americans in Paris exhibit—Russell still experiences the occasional dead end.

“I work on only one painting at a time,” he says. “I’m too absorbed in that one painting;  all my intensity goes into that. I sincerely believe this. However, more than once I’ve given up (on paintings) and have ditched them as hopeless.”

An early riser, Russell prefers to work in the mornings. “I tend to paint in early mornings. I wake up about 6 and head to the studio, paint until around noontime. After that I’m pretty well shot. I’m mentally tired, starting to make mistakes,” he explains.

“When I go to bed, I’m generally feeling pretty satisfied. In the morning, I’m thinking, I’ll finish it off. But after about five minutes in the studio the next day, I can see what’s wrong. Then I start to lose it or become absorbed or confused. It’s like when you rearrange your furniture and then the next morning it looks OK except that one chair should be moved 2 feet that way.”

His studio takes up most of the ground floor of an 1866 carriage house near Forsyth Park. Against a well-lit backdrop of sandblasted brick, works-in-progress stand easel-to-easel with finished pieces.

Also a writer as well as a historian, Russell co-authored, with his wife, Barbara, Savannah: A History of Her People Since 1733 (now in its sixth printing) and has 15 years’ worth of a novel stuffed into the proverbial desk drawer. He’s now working on a book about George Washington and Lafayette (the French aristocrat who served under Washington during the American Revolution), envisioning a father-son relationship he says is not all that far-fetched. To see more of Preston’s work, prestonrussell.com

To read more on Preston Russell, pick up the latest issue of South magazine!

Photo by Josh Branstetter

Patti Callahan Henry may not have started life as a Southerner, but she’s definitely become one. And in so doing, this New York Times best-selling author has joined the ranks of the nation’s most preeminent Southern novelists.

For the past 16 years, the Telfair Museum has honed in on the idea that artistic creation can be therapy: that by use of creative medium, patients can explore the depths of their illnesses, physical and mental disabilities, and recoveries. In partnership with local organizations and the city of Savannah, the Telfair Museum presents I Have Marks to Make, an exhibit of art created as therapy.

A new program at the Telfair Museum of Art marries science with art to help doctors better empathize with patients and get some truly beautiful results