August 2013

Coastal Carolina University in Conway Offers Works by Erin Wiersma & Karen Ann Myers

Coastal Carolina University in Conway, SC, is presenting two exhibits, on view in the Rebecca Randall Bryan Art Gallery, including: Erin Wiersma: Solo Exhibition, through Aug. 23, 2013. A reception will be held on Aug. 22, beginning at 4:30pm, and This is What Makes Us Girls, featuring paintings by Karen Ann Myers, on view from Aug. 29 through Sept. 27, 2013. A reception will be held on Aug. 29, from 4:30-6:30pm.

Wiersma received her BA Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing from Messiah College in Grantham, PA, and her MFA in Painting from the University of Connecticut at Storrs. She has shown works in exhibitions ranging from the A.I.R Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, Modern Arts Midtown in Omaha, NE, and ARC Gallery in Chicago, IL; to countless college and university shows.

Wiersma’s work has received awards from Kansas State University, K-State Olathe Innovation, and Studio Visit Magazine. She currently lives in Manhattan, KS, where she works as an Assistant Professor of Art at the Kansas State University.

Wiersma said, “When I paint I seek to achieve a state in which I’m present, to find an instant of experiential awareness, both in the moment and beyond moments, what T.S. Eliot calls a ‘still point of the turning world.’ Freed from ordinary time in this way, the act of painting becomes a place to operate beyond Chronos, or chronological time, where I attempt to experience that which extends beyond the initial perceptions of present time and space, where there is an intersection of process, momentum, and recording, where the painting becomes both the essence and the phenomenon itself.”

This is What Makes Us Girls, an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Karen Ann Myers. The paintings explore our obsession with beauty through elaborate renderings of patterns, textures, and figures. “I am investigating the psychological complexity of women,” states Myers, “through intimate observations in the bedroom. The work is inspired by the cult of beauty in contemporary mass media.”

Myers, currently Associate Director of the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, at the College of Charleston in Charleston, SC, is an artist, educator and curator. She received an MFA in Painting from Boston University and a BFA in Studio Art from Michigan State University. Her paintings and works on paper exist nationally and internationally in private collections. Myers’ work has been featured in numerous publications including Oxford American’s “100 Under 100: The New Superstars of Southern Art”, and “New American Paintings”.

For further information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings, call James Arendt at 843/349-6409 or visit (www.coastal.edu/bryanartgallery/).

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