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December Issue
2009
Sumter County
Gallery of Art in Sumter, SC, Features Works by Shaun Cassidy
and Tom Stanley
The Sumter County Gallery
of Art in Sumter, SC, is presenting the exhibit, Shaun Cassidy
and Tom Stanley: Collaboration of Fragments, on view through
Dec. 31, 2009. The exhibition consists primarily of a series of
wall mounted painted aluminum and steel collages, and works on
paper and canvas. The exhibition is a result of the artists' collaborative
thinking and working over the past two years.
Shaun Cassidy's constructions mime and mine the territory established
between stage and audience, an awkward relationship when the proscenium
is unpopulated. The work assumes the roles of stage (the
physical piece), actor (an implied presence) and story (an inferred
narrative), requiring the viewer to complete the narrative and
identify metaphor according to his or her disposition and experience.
Cassidy states: "Collaboration of Fragments consists primarily of a series of wall mounted painted aluminum and steel collages. The collages, although abstract, upon reflection suggest particular forms and fragments of imagery. The intense color relationships, and the selection and juxtaposition of shapes, work to enhance the energy, movement and resonance of each collage and to provide the collective body of work with a spirit of joy, directness and intuitive freedom. Working collaboratively has opened new doors, and new creative paths have developed as a result of the collision of our individual interests and working habits."
Cassidy received a BA Honors from the Norwich School of Art, U.K. and his MVA from the University of Alberta, Canada. He has been an Associate Professor of Art and Design at Winthrop since 1999. Cassidy's work has been included in many solo and group exhibitions including DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA, 1996, 2000, Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, MN, 1998, Release, McColl Center for Visual Arts, Charlotte, NC (solo), 2002, The Felt Moment, Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, SC, 2003, Space Revisions, Sumter Gallery of Art, Sumter, SC, 2003 (curated by Tom Stanley), and Accessibility: Space Questions, Sumter, SC, 2004.
Using music as a point
of departure for improvisation In his early career, Tom Stanley
began explorations into visual art and music with painted impressions
of works by Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond. However, over
the past fifteen years, Stanley's paintings have become much more
structured using symmetry, form, and iconography or symbols as
a means to explore free floating visual narratives. Personal memory
has been central to the narrative in series like en route to
hamlet (that explored an imagined relationship with John Coltrane
on rural roads leading to small towns in the Carolinas); and across
the river and Floating (both of which explored an artistic
search for his grandfather, "young painter" Tom Stanley,
who drowned in the Mississippi River in 1920 New Orleans).
Regardless, all of the images depend on the simplicity of mechanical
drawing and sgraffito techniques. Images that Stanley uses are
typically flat and silhouette-like. In contrast to earlier work,
recent paintings have explored a random and totally fabricated
3-dimensional perspective. As an occasional curator, Stanley's
professional interests and experiences have often revolved around
interactions with self-taught artists and their works. He would
like to think that his own artwork has been influenced by their
attitudes and approaches to art making, but concedes that any
comparison may lie more in a shared humanity.
Recent work in the area of public art with colleague Shaun Cassidy
has encouraged him to consider broader audiences while navigating
a spirit of collaboration and common interests in the integrity
of the work. Stanley is continually trying to find ways for
his work, and the work of other artists and students, to enter
into the public dialogue. He believes that artists have a responsibility
to introduce what they do artistically into the mix of civic engagement.
Stanley notes that the project, Collaboration of Fragments "has been, and still is, a very fluid yet fragmented process of communication and interaction that has led to new ideas and discovery. Works created collaboratively have also informed our individual works produced during this period. The process has been impacted by demands on our personal time that translate to fragments of creative time. Regardless, this is the most productive I have been in recent memory. I look forward to what will be next."
Stanley received his
BA in Studio Art from Belmont Abbey/Sacred Heart Colleges, Belmont,
NC, and his MFA in Painting from the University of SC. Stanley,
the longtime Director of Winthrop University Galleries, has been
the Chair and Associate Professor of the Dept. of Fine Arts at
Winthrop since 2007. His work has been included in many solo and
group exhibitions including en route to orleans, McColl
Center for Visual Arts, Charlotte, NC, 2001, Accessibility
2001, Sumter, SC, Triennial 2004, SC State Museum,
South Carolina Birds, Sumter Gallery of Art and Burroughs
Chapin Art Museum, 2004, Floating, Ken Kirschman Artspace,
NOCCA Riverfront, New Orleans, LA, 2004, Sommerwende International
Arts Festival, gallery twenty-four, Berlin, 2005, Introductions,
Barbara Archer Gallery, Atlanta, GA, 2006.
Cassidy and Stanley have recently been collaborating on commissioned
works including Journey, a 55 foot powder-coated
aluminum wallpiece for the North Carolina Local Government Federal
Credit Union in Raleigh celebrating images of North Carolina from
the mountains to the coast. However, the Sumter project partially
funded by a Winthrop University Faculty Research Grant is the
first opportunity the two artists have had to pursue artworks
that emerge from their individual and collective creative
goals.
Karen Watson, Director of the Sumter County Gallery of Art notes
the enthusiasm surrounding this show stating that "both Tom
and Shaun are familiar to Sumter audiences through the inclusion
of their work in several shows at the gallery (Stanley's work
was included in South Carolina Birds, 2004, and the State
Art Collection 1987-2006, 2006, and Cassidy's work was in
Space Revisions 2003), and their participation in Sumter's
Accessibility installation project; Stanley in 2001 and Cassidy
in 2004."
For further information
check our SC Institutional Gallery listings, call the gallery
at 803//775-0543 or visit (www.sumtergallery.org).
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