April 2013

Corrigan Gallery in Charleston, SC, Offers Work by Steve Bliss & John Hull

Corrigan Gallery in Charleston, SC, will present a show of the works by Steve Bliss and John Hull, on view from Apr. 5 - 30, 2013. A reception will be held on Apr. 5, from 5-8pm.

Bliss, a photographer and the dean of the School of Fine Arts, Savannah College Art and Hull, a painter and the chair of the Studio Art Department, College of Charleston, have been friends for 25 years.

Hull received a BA from Yale University in 1977 and an MFA from the University of Illinois, Urbana – Champaign in 1981. Bliss holds a MFA Photography from Ohio University (1982) and BA Studio Art, University of New Hampshire received in 1977. In Bliss’s words he and Hull have “a similarity in our past, our ages, our kids, our struggle to survive as artists within academic careers. The commitment to making work and to keep making it for its own sake is something we also have in common.”

Bliss’s current works of photography document the neighborhood known as Ardsley Park, in Savannah, GA. The work is concerned mostly with a balance of form and information, the information being the idiosyncrasies of the place and/or architecture. It is about the suburban landscape, formal, color. The point of view is important to this work.

Hull says of his own series: “Although these pictures are products of my imagination I have been inspired by and relied on two dipartite sources – a group of drawings I did a number of years ago of Roberts Bros. Circus and the Divertimento per li Regazzi. Roberts Bros. is small-time circus that travels throughout rural America in the summer and fall. It’s made up of about 15 people who pretty much do everything from setting up the tent to participating in the various acts. The Divertimento is a series of drawings done by Domenico Tiepolo late in his life and are based on an imagined life of Punchinello, a character from the Commedia dell’arte.” (Tiepolo’s title translates as “Entertainment for the Children.”)

Teaching for 21 years at SCAD and dean since 2008, Bliss developed the fine arts program for the new Hong Kong campus and created a student-led photography documentary project there. He co-developed and led off-campus travel programs for SCAD students in China, Italy and France. He was a national board member for the Society for Photographic Education (SPE) and director of the Resident & University of Maine Photography Programs at The Maine Photographic Workshops and is currently National Advisory Council Member for Maine Media Workshops.

Bliss has shown in France, Germany, Italy, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Australia, California, Massachusetts, Illinois, England, Louisiana, DC, Georgia, New Hampshire, Michigan, Texas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Maine, Connecticut, Missouri, New York and Minnesota. He has been a visiting artist to the College of Charleston, Yale University and SUNY. He has received a Georgia Council For The Arts Artist’s Support Grant, Southern Arts Federation/National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Polaroid Artist’s Support Grant. Numerous publications include his work such as Aperture, International Photography, The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes and Introduction to Digital Photography.

Hull taught at Augustana College in Illinois, Yale University and the University of Colorado at Denver. He has been a professor of painting and department chair of studio art at the College of Charleston since 2007. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including four National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists’ Fellowships, the Maryland Arts Council Visual Artist Fellowship, the Thomas Benedict Clarke Prize for Painting from the National Academy of Design and an Achievement Award from American Artist Magazine for painting.

Hull has been exhibiting nationally since 1981 with solo exhibitions at Tatischeff Gallery, the New Museum of Contemporary Art and Grace Borgenicht Gallery all in New York; Ron Judish Fine Arts, Denver; Kohn-Turner Gallery, Los Angeles; the J.B. Speed Museum, Kentucky; the Edwin A. Ulrich Museum, Kansas; and Nancy Lurie Gallery, Chicago. Group exhibitions include “The 1980’s: A New Generation,” the Metropolitan Museum of Art; “The Artist at Ringside,” The Butler Museum of American Art; “Romance and Irony,” National Gallery of New Zealand; “The Figure: Another Side of Modernism,” the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art; and “The 179th Annual Invitational Exhibition of American, Art,” the National Academy of Design.

Hull’s work is found in public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Israel Museum, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, Greenville County Art Museum, the Edwin A. Ulrich Museum and the Yale University Art Gallery.

In its eighth year, Corrigan Gallery is the culmination of 25 years of experience in the Charleston art market. Representing more than a dozen artists in an intimate space, the gallery presents a new show almost every month and invites visiting artists at least once a year. Other gallery artists include Manning Williams, Richard Hagerty, Joe Walters, Sue Simons Wallace, Gordon Nicholson, John Moore, William Meisburger, Mary Walker, Kristi Ryba, Paul Mardikian, Kevin Bruce Parent and Judy Cox. Many of these local artists have established national careers and are included in museum collections.

A gallery of contemporary works exploring the depth and intellect behind the drive to create, Corrigan Gallery provides dimension to the historic city’s traditional bent.

For further information check our SC Commercial Gallery listings, call the gallery at 843/722-9868 or visit (www.corrigangallery.com).

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