From Homer to Shakespeare to Spielberg, the history of Western Culture has been driven by the narrative arc. Stories tell the tales of our lives. The heroic journeys of all cultures, as recounted by Joseph Campbell in “A Hero with a Thousand Faces,” reveal the important recurrent themes of transcendence through our shared experience. The exhibition Big Stories, curated by Bo Bartlett, Noah Buchanan, and Carl Dobsky, at the Bo Bartlett Center in Columbus, Georgia is a survey of large scale Contemporary Figurative painting informed by the narrative tradition. Whether the narratives occur in the imagery on the surface, or are deeply embedded in the paint, the paintings of Big Stories open up the viewers thoughts and feelings about our shared stories and call us to find meaning in this existence.