| 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..." |
March Issue 2007
Blue Sky Gallery in Columbia, SC, Features Works by Warren Edward Johnson, a.k.a. - Blue Sky
The Blue Sky Gallery
in the Five Points area of Columbia, SC, is featuring a new show
of paintings by Blue Sky entitled, My Deep South. The exhibit
will be on view from Mar. 1 through June 30, 2007.
Upon returning from Los Angeles, Sky was inspired with a new appreciation for the landscapes of South Carolina. My Deep South explores scenes encountered while - day tripping - throughout the state, his favorite pastime.
For the past two years, Sky has divided his time between South Carolina and California, a pair of states which could hardly be more different. Sky's ancestors have made their home in South Carolina for nearly 300 years. His maternal great uncle was renegade Governor William Aiken (1844-1846), later a congressman, and then a blockade runner during the civil war. Sky has deep roots in the South and cherishes a love for her pastoral beauty that would escape most viewers. My Deep South depicts bridges, old abandoned cars, ancient trees, and families fishing along the rivers and marshes.
Sky says, "There is an accessibility of nature in the South. I can travel just three miles from my home in Columbia and be in a swamp. I live near Forest Acres, and there are raccoons, and possums, and rabbits, and owls, and snakes roaming our yard." Things are very different in L.A., where his urban home is surrounded by ceaseless activity, locomotive creative energy, and of course the Pacific Ocean.
Blue Sky (Warren Edward Johnson - b.1938) has been painting professionally for over 45 years. His influence runs particularly deep in the South, but his public works, remarkable for maintaining museum quality at immense scales, are known the world over.
Sky received his early artistic training under the mentorship of the late Ed Yaghjian, former director of art at the University of South Carolina. He went on to study at the University of Mexico and the Art Students League in New York before returning to South Carolina for his master's degree. However, Sky's work was always a world apart from his peers'. The style he adopted during this period diverged wildly from popular trends in painting and sculpture, which had grown increasingly more abstract. Suffering through criticism, he continued to develop his progressive blend of realism, spectacle, and illusion.
Sky absorbed his subject matter and sang its praise on canvas; beaches, marshes, automobiles, and urban landscapes - the essence of the South. By the time he painted Tunnelvision in 1974, he had championed a new style that won him widespread critical acclaim.
My Deep South represents everything Sky loves most about his home state. After returning from New York in 1965, he kissed the ground at Pawley's Island - it was a return to the majesty of nature from the cold bustle of city life. His experiences in Los Angeles have been more positive, but the home is incomparable.
For further information check our SC Commercial Gallery listings, call the gallery at 803/779-4242 or visit (www.blueskyart.com).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing
Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc.
Copyright© 2007 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© 2007 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.