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June Issue 2007
McColl Center for Visual Art in Charlotte, NC, Presents Exhibition by Affiliate Artists
The McColl Center for Visual Art in Charlotte, NC, will present the exhibition, Eight: Work by Summer and 11-Month Affiliate Artists, featuring works by Jan Bode Smiley, Anatoly Tsiris, Eric Anderson, Meredith Hebden, Mary Draper, Julie Benda, Ashley Lathe, and Ginny Boyd, on view from June 1 through Sept. 1, 2007.
Jan Bode Smiley is a self-taught artist from Fort Mill, SC. She began her artistic endeavors as a quilt maker. Building on these skills, she began exploring mixed media materials and techniques. The result is large, bold, inventive work. She is the author of four books, including Scrapbooks on the Go: Collect and Create While you Travel. Smiley travels internationally lecturing on the subject of quilt making and fiber arts.
Born in Kmelnitsky, Ukraine, Anatoly Tsiris is a former math and science teacher. His first job in the United States was as a carpenter, where he gravitated to furniture making. Tsiris believes each piece of wood tells a story. He uses only previously cut trees, and shapes them, exposing each unique personality. Using only indigenous wood to this region he creates large-scale pieces that are imposing, and explore his great love for the natural world.
A McColl Center for Visual Art Artist-in-Residence Alumnus, Eric Anderson is returning to continue his exploration of the forms and constructions of space, time and movement. Inspired by an interest in his ancestry, Anderson creates magnificent pieces capturing the power and elegance of the Viking Era. He received his MFA in Sculpture from Pratt and recently retired from 36 years of teaching at UNC Charlotte.
Charlotte photographer Meredith Hebden has been photographing flowers and gardens for 13 years. Her subjects are found in diverse locations, ranging from her living room window, to high alpine wilderness, from southwestern deserts to piedmont gardens.
Mary Draper is influenced by her artist parents and growing up in rural Kentucky - she integrates the spontaneity and richness of watercolor to create intimate pieces. Developing beauty through abstraction, Draper manipulates color to express ephemeral ideas and concepts.
After a career as a mechanical engineer, Julie Benda received her BFA from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Using the study of shadow in her work, she develops abstract concepts of what is seen and what is inferred.
The focus of Ashley Lathe's work is the recognition and celebration of the banal and overlooked objects in everyday life bricks, garbage cans, food, warehouses and other common objects which lack their own drama. As works of art, they are given meaning. He invites viewers to engage in seeing the ordinary in new and expressive ways.
Born into a family of engineers and scientists, former Art Teacher-in-Residence, Ginny Boyd has adopted scientific documentation in order to help viewers see not only the product but the process behind her work. She documents the personal dialogue between herself personally and herself as an artist, exploring the spiritual and the mundane.
For further info check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Center at 704/332-5535 or visit (www.mccollcenter.org).
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