January Issue 2002
City Art Gallery in Columbia, SC, Offers Mid-Career Retrospective by Tarleton Blackwell
"My continuing quest
or mission is to visually articulate the culture of the rural
Southeastern United States. I am trying to interpret and to create
a visual language to express this way of life." Tarleton
Blackwell
City Art Gallery in Columbia, SC, will present an exhibit entitled, Tarleton Blackwell: A Mid-Career Retrospective and New Work, which will be on view from Jan. 17 - Mar. 9, 2002.
Tarleton 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. The native of Manning, SC, populates his visual
world with hogs, opossums, wolves, pit bulls and cats but also
with images inspired by his experience as an arts teacher and
as a devoted fan of the seventeenth century Spanish School of
painting.
The exhibit at City Art is designed to present an overview of
Blackwell's career as an artist as well as to showcase new work.
The show will feature many of the artist's aesthetic turning points
in the Hog Series, several images of the Wolf General
and the Marshall Opossum, studies for public commissions
such as The Wheels of Time, lithographs, a three-dimensional
"throne," new small paintings and even some large scale
work.
Much of the allure of Blackwell's work rests
in his complex, dense, and often ambiguous imagery, one that plays
as 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.
Blackwell has pointed out that hogs, so central to his work, emerged
out of his experiences raising them but that over time, they began
to mean something more. He articulates our shared cultural and
social perceptions about the animal, whether derived from the
Three Little Pigs, Porky the Pig, industrial pig farms, Animal
Farm, Piggly Wiggly and so forth. The same investment of meaning
holds true for the wolf, often seen in
Blackwell's world as an authority figure, or the opossum, depicted
in one of the works on display in the guise of a Wild West marshal.
Issues of power, authority, and wealth complicate Blackwell's visual imagery. Uncle Sam, George Washington, and the US dollar exist side by side more innocent images. In a recent painting, the head of George Washington emerges out of a hand-painted teapot. Behind him looms a stern portrait of Uncle Sam. A cat, dressed in a white costume with a ruffle neckline and sporting Uncle Sam's stove pipe hat sits next to Washington. These figures share the canvas with a white mouse, and, not surprisingly, a herd of hogs. In another work, Blackwell makes as the centerpiece of his canvas a black and white pit bull, an animal that lends itself well to Blackwell's double-edged iconography. The dog shares her space with both teddy bears but also with a picture of African-American soldiers and a cross on fire, an allusion to the burned churches of Clarendon County.
Throughout his career, Blackwell has expressed his affinity for Diego Velasquez, the great Spanish painter and court artist for the royal family in 17th century Madrid. Among the works on display at City Art will be Blackwell's own tribute to the Spanish painter's most famous work, one the South Carolina artist has also titled Las Meninas. Here, instead of the portrait of the young princesses of Spain, we see the animals of Blackwell's world, and where there was the self-referential image of Velasquez painting their portrait, here we have Tarleton Blackwell. It's not the first time the artist has made himself a part of the picture, but it is one of his most impressive works of his already celebrated career.
For more info check our SC Commercial Gallery listings, call the gallery at 803/252-3613 or at (http://cityartonline.com).
Mailing Address: Carolina Arts, P.O. Drawer
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