May 2011

Artists’ Guild of Spartanburg, SC, Features Works by Jonas Criscoe

The Artists’ Guild of Spartanburg will present the exhibit, Beautiful Detritus, an interdisciplinary collection of works by Jonas Criscoe, on view from May 2 - 27, 2011, at the Guild Gallery in the Chapman Cultural Center. A reception will be held on May 19, from 6-8pm.

Criscoe’s work explores the oxymoron suggested by the show’s title: the beauty and “intense variety of color” that exist “in a landscape dotted with the deteriorating infrastructures of old mill villages, empty store fronts, and industries of days gone by.” Always interested in the ways in which the expansion of consumer culture shapes the landscapes and environments we live in, Criscoe is inspired by “the faded hues of old commercial signs and the dark tones of dilapidated structures scattered along the back roads” of the Upstate.

Like the invasive kudzu and Japanese honeysuckle that spring forth from vacant spaces, Criscoe’s work seeks to re-create feelings both of “life and abandonment through the patina of wear and exposure.” Beautiful Detritus imaginatively reconstructs the strange beauty that lies in the derelict corners and the worn surfaces of the world around us.

A winner at the Guild’s 2010 Annual Juried Show, Criscoe has exhibited widely, notably at the Texas Biennial and the International Print Center in New York, as well as in several prestigious publications. After earning Fine Arts degrees from the School of Visual Arts in New York, the University of Texas-Austin and the Rhode Island School of Design, he was named an artist-in-resident at Hub-Bub in Spartanburg, where he currently works and teaches at USC Upstate and Converse College.

For further information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings or call Laura Pinkley at 864/764-9568.

[ | May 2011 | Feature Articles | Carolina Arts Unleashed | Gallery Listings | Home | ]