MADISON — The Madison-Morgan Cultural Center is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibit “Equipoise.” The exhibit will fill two of the Center’s upstairs galleries beginning on Saturday, March 1.

The exhibit, a collection of works by Atlanta-based artist Bonnie Beauchamp-Cooke will open with an opening reception beginning at 5 p.m. on March 1.

The exhibit is based on Beauchamp-Cooke’s “state of balance and equilibrium” she learned both as an artist and as an accomplished horse woman who still works cattle on the family’s Goose Creek Farm in Morgan County.

“I get a lot of therapy out of my horses,” the artist says. “For me, it’s just a calmness.”

“Equipoise” will run until the end of April. Along with Beauchamp-Cooke’s soulful portraits of horses and dogs, she also has visually stunning works of fashion and form. Guests will be enchanted by the 9′ by 6.5′ “My Hidden Secrets’ painting as they enter the exhibit. The work, an evocative study of a woman in a long, flowing dress, moving forward. “It’s a lady who is contemplating her journey,” says Beauchamp-Cooke. “She is typically looking away.”

The artist’s animal subjects are a study in love. “I paint my passion and that is my absolute passion,” she says. Beauchamp-Cooke currently has four horses she rides at Goose Creek. She, along with her husband George Cooke and son Kyle, are all accomplished riders.

The artist says she fondly remembers coming to Morgan County and Goose Creek Farm with her parents Bob and Janet Beauchamp when she was 5-years-old to work cattle and horses. After a day at the farm, the family often had supper at Madison’s iconic Ye Olde Colonial restaurant on the square before it closed.

According to her biography, Beauchamp-Cooke is ‘motivated by her love of nature and her personal connection to God, which she shares with her views by including a cross in each painting.”

Beauchamp-Cooke’s work has appeared in “Veranda,” “Southwest Magazine,” “Atlanta Homes and Lifestyles,” “Simply Buckhead” and “Atlanta Journal & Constitution” among other publications. She studied at the University of Georgia and The Atlanta College of Art where she received a BFA in painting and drawing in 1991. Her work has appeared in countless galleries across the country from Colorado to Georgia.

“Epiupoise” will be a homecoming, of sorts, for a woman who while raised in Atlanta, has Morgan County and Goose Creek Farm in her heart. “I have a passion for that place,” she says. “I love Madison.”