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December Issue 2007
Hampton III Gallery in Taylors, SC, Offers Works by Darell Koons
Hampton
III Gallery in Taylors, SC, is presenting the exhibit Seasons,
featuring paintings by Darell Koons, on view through Dec. 31,
2007.
Koons has been painting barns for almost fifty years. From the 60's on, many have "walked off" with a Koons' painting. He knows of what he paints. He's walked in those barns, felt the wind through the boards, worked in the snow covered fields, played in the grasses. There is a romance, a nostalgia, to the early works. Koons didn't aim for the Currier and Ives scene. Instead, there is a strange tension, an isolation, a longing to return. No human figure appears, yet the viewer knows he is in the land of the living.
"I can't help but be a part of my background, said Koons, "The farm brings back memories. My paintings have been said to have a lonely feeling about them. Perhaps, I had a difficult childhood growing up on a farm in Michigan in the 30's. Often the temperature would be below zero. We didn't have the facilities that people have today, but we always had enough to eat. On a farm, you always had food."
Koons, born in Albion, MI, in 1924, spent most of his childhood in the Albion-Homer area of Southern Michigan. He graduated from Homer Community Schools in 1946. After receiving his BA degree in Art Education from Bob Jones University, Greenville, SC, he returned to Michigan to teach at his high school alma mater while pursuing graduate work at Western Michigan University. Upon completion of his MA degree in Art Education in 1955, he returned to Bob Jones University where he remained until his retirement in 1995.
Koons has had over 40 one-man exhibitions, including the University of South Carolina; Wake Forest University; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC; Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA; the Washington County Museum of Art, Hagertown, MD; and the Jesse Besser Museum, Alpena, MI. He has exhibited in regional and national competitions and has won numerous awards. Some of the more than 100 group exhibitions include the Mead Paper Exhibition, Atlanta, GA; the Hunter Annuals, Chattanooga, TN; Cushing Gallery, Dallas, TX; Isaac Delgado Museum, New Orleans, LA; and the Kenilworth Galleries, Birmingham and Detroit, MI.
Over 2500 paintings have been completed by
the artist. Many are in public collections: the Gibbes Museum
of Art, Charleston, SC; the Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville,
SC; the South Carolina State Art Collection the Mint Museum of
Art, Charlotte, NC; Eastern Michigan University; and the Indonesian
Embassy.
For further information check our SC Commercial Gallery listings,
call the gallery at 864/268-2771 or visit (www.hamptoniiigallery.com).
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