MARIETTA - Members of the Atlanta Fine Arts League will showcase their work tonight as part of a new exhibition at the Marietta/Cobb Museum of Art.

An opening reception will be presented from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the museum, located at 30 Atlanta St. on the Marietta Square. Admission is $8 and includes light refreshments and a cash bar. The exhibition runs through June 26.

Prizes for first, second and third place will be awarded to featured artists based on judging from earlier this week.

AFAL has a diverse membership and the exhibition will showcase talent that reflects that diversity, said Sherry Needle, the AFAL's co-director of exhibitions. Twenty-seven members were invited to share three paintings in the exhibit. The common theme is Realism, which isn't as fashionable at the present as contemporary work, she said.

"It's more or less the old-school art," Needle said.

The participating artists come from around Georgia. Featured artists from Cobb include Sandra Anderson, Jenny Lyon, Shane McDonald and Bayberry Shah.

Lyon, 32, is a Cobb native who previously worked as an English teacher at her alma mater, Walton High School, before becoming a full-time artist. She has three oil paintings on display at the exhibition. One is of her father's baby shoes titled, "My Father's Shoes."

"My grandmother had saved them," said Lyon, who has been an AFAL member for two years. "They're like leather and all hardened, squished and wrinkled. They're just so neat."

The exhibit has a variety of subject matters on display, such as a portrait Needle painted of a Kiowa man, called "Kiowa Pride."

"I liked him a lot, he was in a dance contest," Needle said of her subject in the painting.

Sally Macaulay, museum director, said the AFAL show features "some of the best work I've seen."

Neil and Karen Hollingsworth of Marietta, both artists, judged the exhibition Thursday. They agreed with Macaulay's assessment of the artwork in the show.

"I thought it was excellent," said Karen, after completing her judging. "It was a really good group show. It had a lot of strong paintings."

The AFAL is an exclusive group of 36 professional artists in Georgia. A group of women who were commissioned by families to paint portraits of Georgia soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan, established the organization in 2005. To date, the group has painted more than 90 portraits.

"It's very moving and it's not enough," said Needle, who has painted portraits of three Iraq veterans. "We call the family, meet with them, go through the photos and things concerning how they want them represented. Sometimes it's the wife of a solider, sometimes it's parents; but then we try to integrate what they want. Some want them in uniform, some want them in their high school football uniforms. Either way, we're still trying to give something back to them."

Although AFAL members have made a name for themselves for their portraits of fallen soldiers, none of them will be featured in the exhibition.

For more information about the Marietta/Cobb Museum of Art, visit www.mariettacobbartmuseum.org or call (770) 528-1444.