March 2014

Newberry College in Newberry, SC, Features Works by Robert & Hannah Poe

The Wessels Library Gallery, on the campus of Newberry College, in Newberry, SC, is featuring the work of Robert Poe and Hannah Poe, both from Greenwood, SC, through Mar. 24, 2014.

Robert Poe is Professor Emeritus at Lander University and received his formal education at the University of North Carolina, the Brooklyn Museum School in New York, and the University of E. Tennesee. Hannah Poe received her BFA from the University of North Carolina, an M.ed from Lander University, and has participated in the Professional Pottery Program at Piedmont Tec in Edgefield, SC, as well as workshops at Penland School of Crafts in NC.

Robert Poe’s work has always been experimental with compositional ideas and abstract subject matter. “I keep trying to surprise myself”, he said. His paintings deal with formal abstract concepts - color, line quality, composition, yet his brushstrokes are often loose, emotionally charged and hint at an almost systematic geometry at the same time. There exists an internal dichotomy in his paintings, but to the artist’s credit, far from being disturbing, it is pleasing. These marks that construct the image float in the centers of the canvases leaving space around them to find their own boarders, freeing the artist from the discrete edge of a stretched canvas. His photographs share some of the same concerns for color, texture, and formal abstract composition that one sees in his paintings.

Hannah Poe’s found object sculptures reveal a high degree of sensitivity to the formal relationship between color and form as well as very refined craftsmanship. Her work is elegant. These found objects are arranged and joined in such a way that makes every element feel as though they had always been together or were intrinsically meant to share the very space that they occupy in the sculpture. It is her eye for this connectedness of forms that produces harmony in her pieces. “Having always drawn and loved color, I am usually working on some idea, but the challenges of creating in 3 dimensions propels me into the actual activity. I cannot think my way through it; I must actually do it! What could be better?,” says Hannah Poe,
Interestingly enough, there is only a subdued kinship in the artistic concerns of this husband and wife couple and so the joint show, however remarkably refined, includes a great deal of variety.

Much of the artwork will be available for purchase. 

For further information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Wessels Library at 803/321-5229.

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