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May Issue 2004
Lewis & Clark Gallery in Columbia, SC, Features Group Exhibition
Lexington, SC, native Jason Amick and Benedict
College professor and Darlington, SC, native Tonya Gregg are among
the artists showing at Columbia, SC's Lewis & Clark Gallery
through May 31, 2004. The gallery also presents solo exhibitions
by German artist Roland Albert and Columbia artist-photographer
David Johnson. Albert is showing small works on drawing board,
executed in shellac and mixtures of glue and soil. Amick and Gregg
are presenting acrylic paintings on canvas. Johnson is showing
painted photographs.
For Albert (b. 1944), a widely respected painter and sculptor
in Germany, Sticky Stuff is his first solo show in the
United States. He is showing abstracted human figures and fantasy
stick animals. The work fits Albert's often material-driven art
that hovers between abstraction and figuration, between the natural
and arranged worlds, and between material and psychological existence.
Albert molds paint and marks on surface, he says, rather than
trying to depict things. He is known as a versatile artist, who
blurs the boundaries between drawing and painting and between
painting and sculpting.
Albert is part of the artists' exchange between Columbia and its
German sister city of Kaiserslautern. In that context, he has
participated in several group exhibitions in Columbia in the past
few years, including the 2001 Art Garage Project. Albert
studied with the famous Greek-American sculptor Kosta Alex in
Paris in 1964. In 1970, he graduated from the prestigious Munich
Academy of Fine Arts.
Faith/Reason
is Jason Amick's first solo exhibition since his graduation from
the University of South Carolina art department in 1999. That
year, he won the USC art department's Edward Yaghjian Undergraduate
Studio Art Award. Amick (b. 1976) is exhibiting figurative works
based on philosophical concepts dealing with the nature and limits
of human knowledge, including religious beliefs and rational thought.
In 2003, after not making much art for a few years, Amick recommitted
himself to painting. His work was selected for two juried shows
at the now defunct Art Garage in Columbia. Coming seemingly out
of nowhere for most Columbia art aficionados, the paintings in
those shows created a bit of a buzz and confirmed the high expectations
his professors and fellow students had at USC. Amick still lives
in Lexington.
Tonya
Gregg
With New Works, Tonya Gregg (b. 1975) shows not previously shown works that are also her first mostly acrylic, mixed-media paintings on canvas. Previously, Gregg painted in oil on canvas and gouache on paper. Her exhibition consists of figurative, highly metaphorical paintings about the media- and advertising-driven pressures on different generations of young black women to live up to rather oppressive body and beauty ideals.
Since Gregg took a teaching job at Benedict College in 2000, she has become a quiet but impressive fixture on the local art scene. She holds art degrees from the University of Maryland and the University of Chicago. Gregg's work has been exhibited widely in the Southeast, as well as in New York City, Washington, DC, Baltimore, and Chicago. Gregg's most recent solo show, last fall, was at the Lawndale Art Center in Houston.
David Johnson is showing a series of black-and-white, hand-painted photographs. The exhibition will be his first. In it, he explores suggestive and sensual themes related to the figure. One of Johnson's works, Nurturer, was recently accepted for the June issue of Photographer's Forum magazine.
Johnson is a graduate of the University of
South Carolina Media Arts Department. There, working with Professor
Jennifer Laffoon, he developed a deeper understanding of and interest
in film. That interest eventually led him to photography.
For more info check our SC Commercial Gallery listings, call
the gallery at 803/765-2405, e-mail to (lewis+clark@duesouth.net)
or at (www.lewisandclarklamps.com).
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