June 2011

City Gallery at Waterfront Park in Charleston, SC, Offers Contemporary Artists for 2011 Piccolo Spoleto Festival

The City of Charleston Office of Cultural Affairs, Charleston Magazine and the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston School of the Arts are presenting Contemporary Charleston 2011: Under the Radar, a Piccolo Spoleto Festival exhibition at the City Gallery at Waterfront Park, in Charleston, SC, on view through July 31, 2011.

The exhibit showcases drawing, collage, painting, photography and installation works by local artists who deserve a closer look. The exhibit was curated by Erin Glaze, Coordinator, City Gallery at Waterfront Park, and Rebecca Silberman, Program Coordinator, the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art.

Originating in 2006, Under the Radar highlighted emerging artists creating in the Lowcountry, and through the same partnerships, the project now serves as the theme for this year’s annual Piccolo Spoleto exhibition, Contemporary Charleston. From the 170 submissions, a unanimous decision was made to feature the following eight emerging artists: DH Cooper, Rebecca West Fraser, Nina Garner, Conrad Guevara, Greg Hart, Alan W. Jackson, Melinda Mead and Lauren Frances Moore.

DH Cooper received a MFA from The School of the Art Institute in Chicago. Upon graduating in 2005 she received an MFA fellowship award for her video thesis project. During and after her graduate studies, her exclusive use of still images expanded to incorporate performance, video, and fiber arts. This shift opened a new venue for her explorations into the domestic arena. Her works have been featured in numerous exhibitions, some of which have been at the Chicago Cultural Center, The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in Chicago, The New Orleans Museum of Art, Time and Space Limited, Hudson NY, and The FAC Modern in Colorado.

Cooper moved to Charleston in 2006 to serve has Creative Strategist and In House Coordinator for “Evoking History/ Places with a Future,” a project through Spoleto Festival USA. Currently she pursues her art career and teaches photography full time at the Art Institute of Charleston.

Born and raised in Charleston, Rebecca West Fraser attended Buist Academy and the Academic Magnet High School. Upon graduating high school, she attended Alfred University in western New York and graduated Cum Lade with a BFA in 2010. While attending Alfred University, Fraser created a small gallery space called “Random Room Gallery” which is open to students, faculty and visiting artists.

In 2009, Fraser interned as a printing assistant for Hand Graphics Studio in Santa Fe, NM. Her work has been featured in the Turner Student Gallery, the Random Room Gallery, in BLUME 2010 at Club Pantheon, Artist’s Lock-in at Eye Level Art, Kulture Klash 2011 and in the one night Postcard Show: Wish you were here! at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art.

Nina Garner was born Sept. 6, 1986 and grew up in various parts of the United States and Okinawa, Japan. In May of 2009 she graduated with a BA from the College of Charleston in Charleston, where she currently resides.

Conrad Guevara is a visual artist working in Charleston. He received a BA from the College of Charleston in Studio Art in 2008. This fall Guevara will attend the San Francisco Art Institute for an MFA in painting. His recent exhibitions include Flavor Cutz at 10 Store House Row, a solo show presented by the North Charleston Cultural Arts Department and ReOrientation IV at Redux Contemporary Art Center. He is currently the Artist in Residence at the Children’s Museum of the Lowcountry.

Greg Hart lives in Charleston with his wife Janet and two Boston Terriers, Millie and Edgar. From 2003 to 2008, Hart worked as a freelance illustrator with images appearing in The Washington Post, Utne Reader, USA Weekend, and Atlanta Magazine. After visiting Paris in 2009, most notably Musée D’Orsay and Musée Picasso, he shifted focus to painting and zeroed in on portrait abstractions. Hart has always been interested in the visual arts with the Greenville County Fine Arts Center being one of his key, early influences. His paintings are informed by the Abstract Expressionist Action Painters, The Fauves, Pop and Street Art. Hart participated in his first group exhibition, Plastic at Eyedrum, Atlanta, GA, in November 2010.

Alan W. Jackson, originally from Savannah, GA, has lived in Charleston since 1979. He graduated from the University of Florida in 1975 and then worked in a series of architectural offices in Savannah, Beaufort, Kiawah Island and Charleston. A LEED accredited professional architect, he is a partner in the architecture firm McKellar & Associates located in Mt. Pleasant, SC. He has studied the Japanese martial art of Aikido since 1984 and currently teaches Aikido in Mt. Pleasant where he lives with wife Pat.

Born and raised in Summerville, SC, Melinda Mead came to photography while grieving the death of her mother. Attracted to the act of capturing and collecting that which is about to be past, she is excited by the exquisite tenuousness of the present moment. Mead studied at the Center for Photography, the College of Charleston and Trident Technical College, and she has exhibited work at Outer Space, as well as in Re:Nude and BLUME art shows.

Lauren Frances Moore grew up in Atlanta, GA, with an odd enthusiasm for the beautiful, the unique, and the absurd. Though she entered the College of Charleston just four years ago as a student of business, it wasn’t long before she began to seek a creative outlet within the college’s well equipped and ever-inspiring sculpture studio. She chose to split her studies into two distinct, yet surprisingly complementary, majors, Business Administration and Studio Art. Moore has since had a number of opportunities to exhibit her large-scale installations around town.

In 2010, she was a part of the 1x1 Student x Faculty exhibition at Redux Contemporary Art Center, where she currently teaches youth sculpture classes. She has been included in the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art’s Young Contemporaries Exhibition for the past four years, through which she has won a several prizes for her work, including “Best in Show” in 2010. Last summer Moore spent nine weeks on an Intern Artist Fellowship at Franconia Sculpture Park, in rural Minnesota and she plans to participate in a similar residency-type program this coming fall at Salem Art Works, in upstate New York.

Artist lectures are scheduled for:
Saturday, July 2, 2011 at 5pm - Rebecca West Fraser and Lauren Frances Moore; Saturday, July 9, 2011 at 5pm - Conrad Guevara and Melinda Mead; Saturday, July 16, 2011 at 5pm - Greg Hart and Alan W. Jackson: and Saturday, July 23, 2011 at 5pm - Nina Garner and DH Cooper.

The City Gallery at Waterfront Park, owned by the City of Charleston and operated by the City of Charleston Office of Cultural Affairs, is a venue for contemporary artwork that is new, vital and innovative, with a focus on broadening Charleston’s arts outlook. The City Gallery provides access to the visual arts for everyone in Charleston, visitors and residents alike, by offering exhibits that are all admission-free.

For further info check our SC Institutional Gallery listings, call 843/958-6484 or visit (www.citygalleryatwaterfrontpark.com).

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