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December Issue
2009
Charleston County
Public Library in Charleston, SC, Features Works by Robert Urban
The Charleston County
Public Library in Charleston, SC, will present the exhibit, Compass:
Paintings by Robert Urban, on view in the Saul Alexander Foundation
Gallery at its main branch, on view from Dec. 1 - 31, 2009.
Urban, an artist from the Upstate, will offer mixed media paintings
in this one-man exhibition. This show marks the artist's first
solo exhibit in Charleston. The title of Urban's exhibit, Compass,
is a reference to the artist's use of navigation in the selection
of landscape settings used for his inspiration.
Although Urban considers himself a landscape artist, his use of layers, juxtaposition, and color puts his work in a contemporary realm. The show's title also refers to the artworks themselves: images or colors will help create a direction for Urban to navigate through the creative process. The paintings build up over time through many layers of acrylic paint, although Urban incorporates other media into his work as well. Words, phrases, and symbols are often layered over, thus becoming somewhat hidden in the work itself.
"By constantly layering and obscuring information in the work, I hope to create an air of conceptual mystery as well as to attain a rich visual surface that changes each time the viewer comes back to it," explains Urban. Oftentimes Urban will scrape or sand away a layer to reveal an earlier layer underneath. "By creating an image and partially destroying it, the artwork is mimicking what happens in the environment through human interaction. This is the essence of what my landscapes are about."
Urban has exhibited throughout the Carolinas and is represented by Catherine Hayes Fine Art in Greenville, SC. His work is in numerous private collections throughout the United States. The artist is a member of the twelve-artist Upstate contemporary art group known as CAFfeine, and is a graduate of the University of South Carolina.
For further info
check our SC Institutional Gallery listings, call Frances Richardson
at 843/805-6803 or visit (www.ccpl.org).
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