|
COLUMBIA S.C.--- City
Art Gallery in Columbia, South Carolina presents a four-person exhibit
featuring new works by City Art represented artists Alex Powers,
Tarleton Blackwell, John Monteith and Rebecca Rhees. The show opens
Saturday, October 9, 2004 and continues through Saturday, November 13,
2004. The public is welcome
to view the show Monday through Friday 10am -6pm and on Saturday 11am –
3pm.
 Alex Powers will show multi panel pieces
“New York Art” and “Studies of America” for the first time in
Columbia. Powers’ painting style has evolved into personal,
content-dominated imagery. Using
gouache, charcoal, pastel and sometimes collage on illustration board, his
loose realism combines an emphasis on drawing with an awareness of the art
of our time. Alex Powers has been a self-employed painter and teacher for
28 years. He exhibits in
galleries in five states and among his many national juried exhibition
awards is the Gold Medal winner in the 1997 American Watercolor Society
Exhibition. He travels and
teaches workshops in this country and abroad.
He is the author of Painting People in Watercolor, A Design
Approach, published by Watson-Guptill, now in paperback.
Powers explains, “I attempt to deal with issues
such as human origins, religion, philosophy, racism, economic, inequality,
etc. These overwhelming
issues are difficult to deal with, but they are what interest me.
And, since I believe in the singularity of life and art, these
issues are the content of my current work.”
Powers’ work will be included in the South Carolina
Art Education Association show at the Columbia Museum of Art this month.
 Tarleton Blackwell
will show a large-scale oil painting (96”x140”). The original sketch
of the painting will be on display. Blackwell has established himself as
one of the leading visual interpreters of the rural South. In his
celebrated Hog Series begun nearly twenty years ago and now
consisting of over two hundred and fifty works, Blackwell explores the
rich iconography of the region, incorporating elements of art history,
children's tales, persistent stereotypes and even commercial imagery.
Much of the allure of
Blackwell's work rests in his complex, dense, and often-ambiguous imagery,
one that is part allegory, part fairytale, and part social commentary.
Blackwell creates a complex topography of the rural South, grounded in his
experience but overlaid with historical and literary musings. Issues of
power, authority, and wealth complicate Blackwell's visual imagery. Uncle
Sam, George Washington, and the U.S. dollar exist side-by-side more
innocent images.
Blackwell graduated
from Benedict College in Columbia in 1978. He received both the Master of
Arts and the Master of Fine Arts degrees from the University of South
Carolina. The recipient of the Martha Beach Endowed Chair in Painting,
Blackwell is currently Visiting Professor and Artist-in-Residence at the
University of North Carolina Pembroke.
Blackwell was
recently recognized in Washington D.C. as a participant of the Art in
Embassies program. Blackwell’s work also will be included in the South
Carolina Art Education Association show at the Columbia Museum of Art this
month.
 John Monteith will show his oil portraits.
John Monteith, a Columbia resident for thirteen years, made his mark on
the international art scene in 1997 with his appearance in the Biennale
de Lyon d’Art Contemporaine, Maison de Lyon, France. Last year
Winthrop University hosted a solo show of his Internet chat room profile
paintings - a/s/l-SC,
and another series of paintings was featured in the exhibit The Felt
Moment at The Columbia Museum of Art.
Ricco/Maresca Gallery in New York selected his collage-based
photomontages for solo exhibits in 1997 and 2001. In 2000 Monteith’s
work was shown in the Edward M. Smith Gallery at Davidson College in North
Carolina.
Monteith’s art has been included in several
prominent group shows at the Susquehanna Art Museum (Harrisburg, PA.), YNOT,
Robert Mann Gallery, NY (in conjunction with Blind Spot magazine), Fresh
Work II, Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona Beach, FL., Kisser,
Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA., (Re) Presenting the South: Six
Contemporary Photographers, curated by Alison Nordstrom. Southeast
Museum of Photography, University of Southern Mississippi Museum,
Hattiesburg, Mississippi (Traveling), Realities, Ricco/Maresca
Gallery, New York, New York, and Biennale de Lyon d’Art Contemporaine,
Maison de Lyon, France, curated by Harald Szeemann (catalogue).
His artwork has also been featured in Harper’s
(Sept. 2001), Blind Spot,
Issue Fourteen, Winter 2000, (Re)Presenting the South: New Studies in
Photography, Southern Quarterly (Summer 1998), The Art of the
X-Files, by Chris Carter and William Gibson (HarperCollins: 1998), and
Graphis Fine Art Photography 2.
 Rebecca Rhees will display her home series in
tintype. Rebecca Rhees
recently graduated with her Masters of Fine Arts degree in photography at
the University of South Carolina, with her MFA exhibition featured in
McMaster Gallery last April. During
her graduate study, she received the John Benz Graduate Studio Art Award
from the University's Department of Art, recognizing her for the
excellence of her graduate work. Previously,
Rhees earned her Bachelors of Fine Arts degree from Brigham Young
University, in Utah, where she is originally from.
There she earned the prestigious Dean’s Award for the College of
Fine Art and Communications. Rhees is currently interested in the
expressive capabilities of historic photographic processes, and their
relevance to contemporary experience.
Her recent body of work features the tintype, which she uses for
the inherently unique characteristics to portray her view of the subject
of home.
City Art Gallery is located at 1224 Lincoln St. in
the historic Congaree Vista area in Columbia, South Carolina. Gallery
hours are Monday-Friday 10 a.m. until 6 p.m, and Saturdays 11 a.m. to 3
p.m. For more information contact Marissa Dancer, Executive Assistant,
City Art Gallery, at 252-3613.
###
|
