May Issue 2001
Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, NC, Presents New Exhibitions
The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) in Winston-Salem, NC, is proud to present multi-media artist Lesley Dill's Tongues on Fire: Visions and Ecstasy in the Potter gallery and on billboards along Highway 52 in Winston-Salem, on view from May 12 - July 1. The exhibition of completely new work was inspired by the language of visions gathered by the artist during her 16-month "Artist and the Community" residency. Dill worked with community organizations and hundreds of area residents in gathering ecstatic, visionary, or spiritual stories, sharing personal and transforming experiences that transcend human differences. These stories were used as the basis for all of the works in the exhibition.
According to Dill, "I wanted to act as a conduit or interpreter to illuminate the individual stories of the community." She did just that by working with Winston-Salem Public Libraries, the Governor's School, Salem College, Digg's Gallery of Winston-Salem State University, and many others.
At the opening night reception, Dill will ask the community to join her and the Spiritual Choir from Emmanuel Baptist Church for a Spiritual Sing. The artist and the choir will use the ancestral a cappella style of call and response singing, practiced in the American South since the days of slavery. Singers will transform the stories gathered throughout the Winston-Salem area into a variation of this form. Students from the North Carolina School of the Arts School of Filmmaking have been working on a documentary of Dill's involvement with the Spiritual Choir and will complete the film after the opening night performance.
SECCA will publish a fully illustrated catalog in conjunction with the exhibition. Tongues on Fire: Visions and Ecstasy will travel nationally to select venues.
This exhibition and series of projects is being organized by the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art and was made possible by generous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation, and the North Carolina Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of North Carolina and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Homegrown I: Celebrating the Ads of North Carolina, is an invitational exhibition that presents the work of artists currently residing in the state of North Carolina and will be on view May 12 through July 1.
Over 240 artists from across the state of North Carolina submitted materials for this exhibition. SECCA solicited artist recommendations from arts professionals across the state and sent out calls of entry to art councils, art organizations, schools, and universities. Associate Curator Douglas Bohr, an artist himself, led the selection team along with other members of the museum's staff. Bohr and Senior Curator David Brown visited 46 artists studios to select the work included in the exhibition.
SECCA is most excited to announce that due to the significant number of North Carolina artists producing outstanding work, Homegrown: Celebrating the Arts of North Carolina will be a 2-part exhibition. 34 artists working in a variety of media and addressing a broad range of subject matter have been selected to exhibit in the Homegrown exhibition. Homegrown I will be on exhibit from May 12 through July 1 and includes: Mary Edith Alexander, Charlotte; Michael Barefield, Winston-Salem; Brian Bishop, Durham; Severn Eaton, Winston-Salem; Paul Friedrich, Raleigh; Jacqueline Heer, Charlotte; Willie Little, Charlotte; Juan Logan, Chapel Hill; Michael Salter, Raleigh; David Simonton, Raleigh; elm O'Hara slavick, Chapel Hill; Jon Smith, Greensboro; David Solow, Durham; Travis Townsend, Penland; Bob Trotman, Casar; Artists in Cellophane, Winston-Salem; and Sherri Wood, Durham. On exhibit from July 14 through September 28, Homegrown II includes: Beth Blake, Greenville; Susan Brenner, Charlotte; Beth Grabowski, Chapel Hill; Hoss Haley, Asheville; Michael Harris, Durham; Paul Hartley, Greenville; Bryant Holsenbeck, Durham; Michael Klauke, Raleigh: Andrea Lekberg, Durham; Lonnie Long, Greensboro; George Lorio, Greensboro; Bonnie Melton, Durham; Laura Ames Riley, Chapel Hill; Carl Shurer, Greensboro; Jon Smith, Greensboro; Idamarie Spurr, Oxford; Anthony Ulinski, Raleigh; and Clark Whittington, Winston-Salem.
Dreamscapes: Visual Poetry, is an exhibition featuring works by K-12 students from the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School system, which will be on view May 12 through June 3. This annual collaboration with the public school art program will focus on dreams and the connections between visual art and language. Inspiration will come from SECCA's "Artist and the Community" project Lesley Dill: Tongues on Fire: Visions and Ecstasy and from the work of other twentieth century artists dealing with visions and dreams, notably the Surrealists.
SECCA is also pleased to present Susan Shatter: Paintings, through September 30. Shatter's realist paintings will be on exhibit in SECCA's Entrance Hall, Living Room and Library. Shatter is currently a visiting artist in residence at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
For further information check our NC Institutional
Gallery listings or call SECCA at 336/725-1904, e-mail at (general@secca.org)
or on the web at (http://www.secca.org).
Mailing Address: Carolina Arts, P.O. Drawer
427, Bonneau, SC 29431
Telephone, Answering Machine and FAX: 843/825-3408
E-Mail: carolinart@aol.com
Subscriptions are available for $18 a year.
Carolina Arts
is published monthly by Shoestring
Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc.
Copyright© 2001 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© 2001 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.