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October Issue 2006
City Art Gallery in Columbia, SC, Offers Landscape Exhibition
This Fall, City Art Gallery in Columbia, SC, is proud to present a collection of paintings and ceramics in the landscape genre by a fine assemblage of South Carolina artists. The exhibit, Landscapes, features works by Jim Arendt, Michael Cassidy, Randall McKissick, Brian Rego, and Sam Wilkins, on view from Oct. 6 through Nov. 11, 2006. Ranging from small en-plein-air studies to large-scale abstractions and even to works in pottery, the endless themes and possibilities of native South Carolina landscapes and distant scenes has inspired the featured group in a variety of interpretations.
Jim Arendt has been noted for his particularly broad manner of painting, using large and unadorned strokes of restrained color in order to convey a strongly physical sense of meaning in each of his paintings. Using very liquid transitions among areas of emphasis within his compositions, Arendt displays a unique mastery of textural illusion. Besides being able to link human philosophy and psychology in landscape, he very often involves personal history in his work. Arendt teaches Painting and Figure Structure in Drawing at the University of South Carolina and is very popular for his interesting and diverse teaching methods.
The landscapes of Michael Cassidy are also large in scale, but unlike the paintings of Arendt, he seems to place far less emphasis on the actual human condition in favor of interpreting a place with a particular sense of mood. Far less direct in his approach, Cassidy works with transparent colors in numerous glazes that convey his interest in solving problems of atmosphere. His scenes vary from damp, foggy, and haunting marshes, to brilliantly colorful depictions of sunlit meadows and groves. Cassidy also teaches Painting at USC and emphasizes experimentation with different painting mediums in his classes, such as encaustic.
Randall McKissick received his fine art training at the Ringling School of Art and Design and has worked as an illustrator for a great part of his career. Much less grand in scale, McKissick's impressionistic genre scenes and wildlife images show his love for the subtlety of real light, atmosphere, and color. He has no inhibitions with using simple color planes that flow from one to the other in feathery brushstrokes. His lush use of oil is particularly pleasant. McKissick's oil portraits and figures were also recently featured in City Art's Faces Figures show. Besides being a most excellent painter, McKissick also shares his knowledge of painting with students at City Art in oil painting workshops.
Also featured in this exhibition are the landscape studies of Brian Rego. He is currently working towards his MFA degree at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art and was also recently included in the Faces Figures show. In his studies and paintings, Rego very often concentrates on geometric color fields and how those interact to build composition and meaning. A passionate en-plein-air painter, Rego searches for patterns and moments of interests in the diverse places he visits, and has learned to create an illusion of wind, climate and even a feeling of time. He has a particular love for fresh color and rich texture in oil, which combine to fill his works with great sense of optimism.
Finally, the unique pottery of Sam Wilkins will ornament the space of the gallery. His fine craftsmanship in ceramics shows in the vases and vessels, which are adorned with scenes of Tuscany and Venice. Wilkins uses the shape of ceramic vessels to create endless scenes and he even breaks the shape of certain vases in order to create perplexing visual illusions and distortions. The rich blues and yellows of the Tuscan fields with churches are as serene as the elegant shape of the vases and pitchers that also suggest ambiance in far more than a decorative manner.
For further information check our SC Commercial
Gallery listings, call the gallery at 803/252-3613 or at (www.cityartonline.com).
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