April 2011

Vista Studios and if Arts in Columbia, SC, Offers Works by Matt Overend & Ashlynn Browning

Vista Studios in Columbia, SC, will present two exhibits including: Matt Overend: Free Range and Ashlynn Browning: Geometry Personified, both on view in Gallery 80808, from Apr. 1 - 12, 2011. A reception will be held on Apr. 1, from 5-9pm.

Matt Overend (b. 1950) will present three-dozen paintings that cover the wide range of his work. Included will be two-dozen nudes, making the exhibition the first time Overend is exhibiting these paintings. Most of the nudes were painted in the past few years, though some go back as far as 1995. In addition, Overend will show road studies and other landscapes, minimalist knife paintings, architectural studies and studio still lives with flowers, bottles or containers.

Overend is a native of Las Vegas, NV, who grew up in Atlanta, GA, and has lived in Smoaks, SC, since 1981. He’s been a mainstay of the South Carolina art scene for decades and is represented in the South Carolina State Art Collection, managed by the SC Arts Commission. Overend has been featured in four if ART Gallery exhibitions in the past five years. In 1973 Overend graduated as an aerospace engineer at Georgia Tech before studying art at Santa Barbara City College in California, the University of California at Santa Barbara and Yale University.

Ashlynn Browning (b. 1977) will present almost two-dozen new paintings in which she combines geometric forms and intuitive process.

“This work bridges the gap between physical and psychological landscape,” Browning says. “Many of these new paintings I read as ‘places’ and even still-lifes. In others, geometric forms - precarious, toppling, and off balance - are stand-ins for figures. They offer a psychological presence and an overarching mood that is playful, quirky, and at times melancholy.”

Browning, who joined if ART Gallery in 2010, is an abstract-expressionist painter from North Carolina. She is a recipient of a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant and has exhibited at New York’s CUE Foundation and Lincoln Center. Other recent exhibitions include those at Hallway Projects in San Francisco and Flanders Gallery in Raleigh, NC.

Browning has received grants and residency fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, the United Arts Council and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Her work was featured in the 2009 Southern edition of New American Paintings. Browning was born in Charlotte, NC, and lives in Raleigh, NC.

For further information check our SC Commercial Gallery listings, call the Studios at 803/252-6143 (to confirm hours) or visit (www.VistaStudios80808.com).

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