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March Issue 2004
The Sylvan Gallery in Charleston, SC, Features Works by Joan Potter, Nancy Bush, and Glenna Goodacre
The Sylvan Gallery in Charleston, SC, announces a special exhibition to be held Mar. 5, 2004, spotlighting the paintings of Joan Potter and Nancy Bush. The gallery will also be presenting the exhibit, Glenna Goodacre: Inspirations from the Irish Memorial , on view from Mar. 19 through Apr. 15, 2004.
Joan Potter
Joan Potter's still-lifes are infused with light ? a quiet inner glow. Forty years of painting still-lifes has enriched Potter's visual language and perfected her portrayal of flowers, produce and special treasures collected during world travel. Her quiet, sensual paintings provide the viewer with an intimate personal sense of budding life ? belying the term still-life or nature morte (dead nature) as the French say.
Nancy Bush
Nancy Bush's landscape paintings are tranquil, moody, tonalist works capturing a moment of the truth and beauty of which "God speaksthrough nature." Having watched her great-uncle Ralph Rowntree, an internationally known portrait artist, Bush fell in love with art. Thinking she would follow in his footsteps and paint portraits, she found herself pulled to the landscape. An avid traveler, she takes advantage of the opportunities to paint on location, en plein air.
What do the Sacagawea dollar coin, Ronald Reagan, The Vietnam Women's Memorial, John Wayne and The Irish Memorial have to do with each other and Charleston? All are sculptural works created by Glenna Goodacre and her sculpture is being shown here in Charleston at The Sylvan Gallery.
The National Irish Memorial was unveiled in Philadelphia in Oct. 2003. The piece is comprised of 30 figures and 40 faces. Inspirations from the Irish Memorial are works and photographic documentation derived from the 30 by 12 by 12 foot sculpture installed at Penn's Landing in Philadelphia that commemorates and honors the Irish spirit of those who died during the potato famine and those who immigrated to the United States.
Approximately one million people died in Ireland due to the famine and the resulting diseases. One and one half million more moved to America to create a sustainable life. This monument honors these individuals. One side displays the personal agonies and the tragedy of the hunger years while the other side expresses the hope of those who traveled by sea to the "promised land."
A study of female sculptors yields twenty leading artists over the last two hundred years. Glenna Goodacre is the only living woman with a career of note sculpting in a traditionally realist style. Her work is in the collection at Brookgreen Gardens in this region and in collections throughout the United States. In the tradition of Anna Hyatt Huntington and Camille Claudel, Goodacre works in clay infusing the forms with expressions of life and energy. These clay works are then cast in bronze. Her life-like, often life-size figures capture a moment in time. She also creates small, highly collectible pieces of art.
Another connection to Charleston is the impact Bettina Steinke, the former Santa Fe grand dame of portraiture, had on Goodacre. Steinke is described as one of Goodacre's heroes. Steinke also greatly influenced Eva Carter, the abstract painter who chose Charleston as her home almost thirty years ago.
The Sylvan Gallery recently celebrated its first year anniversary. The Sylvans are thrilled to be back in South Carolina and to bring to the Lowcountry 30 artists of national and international fame many of whom are well known in the west and being introduced to the southeast. The gallery recently began exhibiting the work of South Carolina's own Rhett Thurman. A welcome addition to the growing Charleston art scene, the Sylvan Gallery specializes in representational art of the 20th and 21st centuries including sculpture by four artists the most known of whom is Glenna Goodacre.
For further information check our SC Commercial Gallery listings, call the gallery at 843/722-2172, e-mail at (j_sylvan@msn.com) and at (www.thesylvangallery.com)
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc. Copyright© 2004 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts Online, Copyright© 2004 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.