Feature Articles


April Issue 2001

McMaster Gallery in Columbia, SC, Features Two Student Exhibitions

Eat Your Words, is an exhibition/installation by Virginia Casey, on view Apr. 7-13 and Show Business for Ugly People, a video installation by Stephen Slappe will be on view from Apr. 16-21, at the University of South Carolina's McMaster Gallery in Columbia, SC. The exhibitions are part of the student's Masters of Fine Art degrees from the Department of Art at USC.

A statement from Virginia Casey follows: "My interest lies in addressing issues of womanhood, including women and their relationship with food and the feminine ideal. Repeated imagery of a stylized 1950s woman will serve as a vehicle to playfully poke fun at and question our notions about women, food, and femininity. Her image is the epitome of the ideal woman - well mannered, well dressed, and well coifed. She strikes an innocent yet seductive pose and is able to coyly proposition the viewer or make veiled statements and innuendo. The imagery paired with text may be quirky or amusing, but will bear cruel insight into our modern condition.

Show Business for Ugly People by Stephan Slappe is comprised of a three-part video installation which subverts the language of television to exaggerate the increasingly blurred boundary between entertainment and reality. The first part, Water, Water, Everywhere, deals with television news, which presents all subjects equally. Entertainment news is given the same, if not more, weight as political news, etc. The second part, The Watcher, uses the insidious nature of sexuality being equated with commodity as its focus. The third part, This is Your Life Chris Bickel!, comments on the absurdity of so-called "reality" programming which use plot devices and editing identical to fiction shows.

Slappe was born in 1973 in Charleston, WV. He received his BFA degree in Painting from the University of North Florida in 1997. Slappe has exhibited regionally at the State Museum (during Artista Vista) and Installations on Main in Sumter, SC.

For further information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings or call Mana Hewitt, Gallery Director at 803/777-7480 or email at (mana@sc.edu).

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