| For more information about this article or gallery, please call the gallery phone number listed in the last line of the article, "For more info..." |
January Issue
2011
Vista Studios in Columbia, SC, Features
Exhibit by 5 Local Artists
Vista Studios in Columbia, SC, will
present the exhibit, Art5Ways@80808, featuring works by
five Columbia-area artists, on view in Gallery 80808 from Jan.
27 through Feb. 8, 2011. An opening reception will be held on
Thursday, Jan. 27, 2011, from 5-8pm. Eileen Blyth, George Down,
Pat Gilmartin, Liisa Salosaari Jasinski, and Laurie Mcintosh bring
their own distinctive styles and media to the show, making for
an exciting and vibrant exhibition of paintings, batiks, ceramic
sculpture, and assemblages of found objects.
Laurie Mcintosh explores the method of wax-resist dyed fabrics,
or batiks, for this exhibition. Inspired during a trip to Africa
by the Zimbabwean's colorful textiles, she has produced a collection
of batik images which examine familiar themes but through a new
(to her) process for creating linework and color saturation. Although
perhaps better known for her oil paintings, Mcintosh's batiks
represent a continuation of her interest in the culture and creatures
of South Carolina's lowcountry.
Human relationships are the subject of the ceramic sculpture offered
for this show by Pat Gilmartin. Narrative vignettes comprised
of small figures engaged in ambiguous interactions encourage viewers
to find their own meanings in the scenes. The figures, in pairs
and trios, are combined with found materials, often rusty iron
shapes. In juxtaposing the smooth, malleable clay with the hard,
corroded surfaces and colors of the metal, Gilmartin heightens
the tension that exists among the figures.
Liisa Salosaari Jasinski was born in Finland but has lived in
the US for many years. The clean, modern style of Finnish design,
as well as early 20th century European Expressionism, inform her
work as a visual artist. In the current show her work consists
of multi-media paintings and constructions. Their varied elements
include linen, foils, steel wool, gels, paints, and transfer images
all mingled through physical processes of stamping, painting,
stenciling, and gluing to create complex, relief-like surfaces.
George Down, whose work is currently represented by galleries
in Santa Fe, NM, and Cheyenne, WY, presents his unique constructions
made from natural materials for the first time in Columbia. Using
simple components found in nature - feathers, pine cones, stick,
twigs, stones, shells, tree bark - Down weaves these elements
into three dimensional compositions and subsequent narratives
based on the graphic textures of nature.
Columbia artist, Eileen Blyth, is known for her paintings and
assemblages. She creates constructions of found objects combined
with paint and fit together as if in conversation. She is attracted
to objects by their textures, colors, or surfaces, and likes to
imagine how they got to be in the places where she found them.
As well, the objects' conditions, how they are continually shaped
by each passing car or change of weather, interests her. Sometimes
the shapes and imagined conversations work their way into other
paintings and drawings. As she says, "The evolving shape,
the repeated motion, the sense of metal scraping road; it all
plays into the work." Blyth has a new studio in the Arcade
Art Studios on Main Street in Columbia.
For further information check our SC Commercial Gallery listings,
call the gallery at 803/252-6134 or visit (www.vistastudios80808.com).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc. Copyright© 2011 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© 2011 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.