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June Issue 2009
Charleston County
Public Library in Charleston, SC, Features Works by Peter Scala
The Charleston County Public Library in Charleston, SC will present the exhibit Fantasy, featuring works by local artist, Peter Scala, on view in the Saul Alexander Foundation Gallery in the Main Branch Library, from June 1 - 30, 2009. The exhibition showcases a mix of oil and Scala's signature egg tempera styled paintings. Having Fun, recently juried into a national show in Winston-Salem, NC, will also be displayed.
Scala's work is immediately recognizable by his unique style and use of bright colors and fantastic shapes and figures. Using images created from his memories of travel in Asia and Africa, his work continually draws on his imagination and experiences. This particular gallery show is also an opportunity for children and young adults to view his work. Always intrigued by his paintings, perhaps due to their fascination with the colors and figures in his work, young viewers easily become intrigued and entertained by the humor and his imaginative use of images.
Scala, known for his original, imaginative, and fanciful images, is as creative in naming his paintings as in painting them. Crying Cat and Dead Bird is one example. The title describes it perfectly and as usual provides hints to the observer. This oil painting shows a colorfully patterned and whiskered cat with eyes conspicuously looking across the canvas. The bird is less distinct and requires the viewer's time to discover and develop the image. As usual, Scala's title provides intriguing hints and invites and leads you throughout the painting.
Scala's paintings derive from his morning sketches. He begins each day with a sketch. These morning sketches, formed of lines without conscious plan, provide him the images and ideas subsequently incorporated into his paintings. Similar to Joan Miró's "Dream Paintings", these morning sketches, are fanciful creations with recognizable characters in a dreamlike setting or a recognizable setting in which fantastic creatures occupy key importance. Having selected one or more ideas from his morning sketches, Scala begins developing his painting on canvas or board, referring back to his collection of drawings. Always colorful, his oil paintings showcase the warmth and luster of that medium, while the egg tempera paintings bring a cool image with an inner glow.
Born in Greenwich Village, in New York City, Scala was raised in a Hudson Street painter's studio. Victor Scala, his father, was a New York cubist artist. He shared studio space with the abstract expressionist, Franz Klein. It is to his father, Franz Klein, and art classes with Mrs. Margot A. Gregor that he owes his early involvement with art, painting, and surrealism.
Scala is a self taught surrealist painter. Influenced by Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró, he creates from his experiences and thoughts. "The impact of Asia and Africa upon my work is considerable: forms, shadows, shouts, murmurs, joys and sorrows. And, I do not paint what I see. I paint what I feel," Scala says. His work presents his surrealist image of the cultures in which he lives and paints.
For this particular show, "Because I know library patrons, who may not have met me, will be stopping by, I am including descriptions of several of the paintings to introduce my work to new viewers".
Scala's work can also be viewed at the Lowcountry Artists Gallery in Charleston and the Portfolio Gallery in Columbia, SC.
For further information
check our SC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Library
at 843/805-6803 or visit (www.ccpl.org).
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