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July Issue 2007
Sumter County Gallery of Art in Sumter, SC, Features Works by Christopher Clamp and Brian Rust
The Sumter County Gallery of Art in Sumter, SC, is presenting two solo exhibitions entitled, Back to the Future: The Art of Christopher Clamp and Rock, Paper, Scissors: Brian Rust. Both exhibits will be on view through Aug. 4, 2007.
Christopher Clamp
A native of Leesville, SC, Christopher Clamp received his BFA with a concentration in painting from Winthrop University in 2001. He was recently honored by being included in the prestigious biennial Re-Presenting Representation at the Arnot Museum in Elmira, NY. Clamp has also been honored with inclusion in the 2001 South Carolina Triennial at the South Carolina State Museum.
Clamp's deeply personal images are influenced by simple yet poignant childhood memories. The commonplace toys and objects featured in his paintings are artifacts gathered in the process of recollecting childhood experiences, particularly the hours spent with his beloved grandfather, amidst his grandfather's collected "treasures" and tools. The objects are meaningful to the artist and to his execution of both content and the carefully executed textures within the paintings. The viewer is invited to bring his or her own personal history to the narrative that unfolds within each painting.
As Richard Maschal wrote in his review of Clamp's work in the June 2006 issue of ARTnews, "Christopher Clamp believes in the power of everyday objects to stir emotions. The artist draws from childhood memories and feelings of dislocation and loneliness. The images seem innocent at first. In The Homecoming (2002), Clamp depicts a toy barn placed on two decaying bricks, which seem to signify loss, in contrast to the security offered by the bright toy barn. Fragile (2005) shows a bird's nest resting on a cardboard box for a hunting slingshot, with stones and a single blue egg nearby. The image recalls the delicacy and easy acts of destruction of childhood. Clamp augments these works with what might be called ghost words. Using the end of a brush, he incises letters into the richly textured backgrounds. These fragments do not spell anything, but add a layer of meaning, as if representing a story struggling to get out."
Clamp is represented by Jerald Melberg Gallery in Charlotte, NC, which worked closely with the Sumter County Gallery of Art to bring this exhibition to Sumter.
Brain Rust
Brian Rust's artwork ranges from large architectural installations to constructed sculpture and mixed media drawing. Many of Rust's architectural installations incorporate a rammed earth technique where clay is mixed with a small amount of cement and layers are tamped into a constructed mold. He received a BFA from the University of Washington in Seattle and his MFA from the University of California in Berkeley. Rust is a Professor of Art at Augusta State University. He was a participating artist for Accessibility 2004: Space Questions, where he produced Earthen Cycle. His work can also be seen at the South Carolina Botanical Garden in Clemson, SC (Earthen Bridge), and the Stone Quarry Hill Art Park in Cazenovia, NY. Rust is currently installing a granite bench on the campus of Winthrop University.
Rust states, "Woven into everything I do is a sense of age and change over time. It is time stretched out until it comes back on itself. In material, texture, and surface there is the notion of re-use and re-configuration. There are references to human history (building, architectural elements, tools, etc) and to natural materials and processes of (earth, stone, decay, etc.). Images and objects are made and 'found' and placed in new associations. Pictures from art history as well as my daily visual experience (with the help of a digital camera) meet and collide into new, unexpected combinations. With my drawings, the use of collaged images, digital photos, text, and drawing become densely layered over one another. Combining drawing and collage allows a great deal of freedom to make visual associations. I often start with sketches and then switch to the sculptural materials as these images start to suggest certain connections (or contrasts) between material and ideas. Sculpture is a slower, more physical way of working so the drawing serves as a way to see potential sculptural forms in several incarnations and allows me to explore new metaphors. In the constructed wood pieces, the carved and natural wood elements grow together to resemble ancient architectural ruins. I love that abundant mixing of contexts, functions, and surfaces within a single work. They become a personal record of the experience of the present moment informed by and infused with history, memory, and chance association."
Rust is represented by Mary Pauline Gallery
in Augusta, GA, which worked closely with the Sumter County Gallery
of Art to bring this exhibition to Sumter.
The Sumter County Gallery of Art is a non-profit, community-based
institution with a commitment to provide visual arts and arts
education opportunities to Sumter, Clarendon, and Lee Counties,
a rural, economically depressed area of South Carolina, geographically
isolated from the major art centers in the US. It serves as one
of the only resources for the visual arts available to this area.
For further information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings, call the gallery at 803/775-0543 or visit (www.sumtergallery.org).
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