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November Issue
2008
USC Upstate in Spartanburg, SC, Features
Works by Maggie McMahon
USC
Upstate in Spartanburg, SC, will present the exhibit, Held
Sacred: An Exploration of Forgiveness Through the Lens of Byzantine
Iconography, featuring works by Maggie McMahon, on view in
the Curtis R. Harley Art Gallery from Nov. 7 through Dec. 5, 2008.
McMahon chose to work in the tradition of Byzantine icons, a format readily recognized as religious. In the Orthodox tradition, icons are sacred objects, and the creation of icons a religious devotion. The materials, color relationships, proportions of the figures, and the complex system of symbols used are all proscribed to further the spiritual dimension of the object.
"A traditional diptych icon, two panels joined by a hinge, often depicts images that are linked thematically, such as the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary," explains McMahon. "I have used this device to link murderer with victim. Elements of the two panels echo each other, in ways that underscores the shared humanity of the two figures. My intent is that this will prevent the viewer from dismissing the assassin as inhuman; pure evil; an abomination. My hope is that the viewer will instead consider perpetrator and victim as two members of the human family, and will be led to consider what it would mean to forgive the perpetrator."
McMahon attended Douglass College, Rutgers
University and completed her undergraduate studies at New York
University. She was awarded a Masters in Fine Arts from Clemson
University. Since 1985, she has been on faculty and advisor to
the 3D majors at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where
she is a UT Foundation Professor in the Art Department.
McMahon received one of 10 annual grants awarded by the Southern
Arts Federation and the National Endowment for the Arts to emerging
artists in the Southeast. Her work has been exhibited nationally
and internationally, more specifically at the: Downey Museum of
Art, CA, William Patterson College, NJ, McIntosh Gallery, Atlanta,
GA and in USA: Portrait of the South at the Museum of the
Palazzo Venezia, Rome, Italy. In 1995, McMahon was invited to
present a series of lectures on contemporary issues in American
art at the Voronezh State University in Voronezh, Russia. She
has had solo exhibitions at the Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia,
SC; Asheville Museum, Asheville, NC; Anderson College in Anderson,
SC; and the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, TN.
In early 2007 and funded in part by a Faculty Development Grant from UT-Chattanooga, McMahon began her study of painting in the Byzantine tradition. A number of pieces in this exhibition were produced during her sabbatical when McMahon was awarded a five-week residency at the Hambidge Center in Rabun Gap, Georgia.
For further information check our SC Institutional
Gallery listings, contact Jane Nodine, Gallery Director by calling
864/503-5838 or e-mail to (jnodine@uscupstate.edu).
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