Primitive Arts in the Modern World – Greg Pryor
Hyman Fine Arts Center Gallery
8:30 am – 5:00 pm Mon-Thur
May 12 – August 16, 2014
“There is great wisdom in the native American proverb, ‘A man must make his own arrows.’ Beyond the metaphorical, making arrows in the modern world connects us to the primitive world of our ancestors. Working in a variety of media, I strive to use natural resources to create arrowheads, knives, and spearheads from flint, obsidian, glass, and porcelain. I manufacture and shoot arrows and atlatl darts made from these arrowheads and locally-sourced river cane, pine pitch glue, wild turkey feathers, and deer sinew. I grow, cure, and process gourds into a variety of containers, and make cordage, tools, bags, clothing, and jewelry from wild plant fibers, bone, clay, stone, sinew, rawhide, and brain-tanned hides.”
Greg Pryor is an Associate Professor of Biology at Francis Marion University with a doctorate in Zoology. He is a traditional artist (working in a variety of media), carpenter, construction worker, cook, and amateur musician, and he practices primitive arts such as bow-and-drill fire-making and survival crafts. He likes to live off the land as much as possible and is a self-proclaimed “nature freak.”
Notes from the Curator:
Dr. Pryor double majored as an undergraduate in zoology and art. His acrylic paintings, most often of birds, reveal animals interacting with human artifacts, sometimes using them, sometimes existing in a landscape littered by them.
Pryor’s primitive crafts give us insight into the interaction of early humans with the natural world. His crafts also give us an opportunity to consider how art crept into craft, as useful objects came to be decorated, placing the indelible stamp of the artisan on everyday objects.
Bits and Pieces – New Works by Adrian Rhodes
Hyman Fine Arts Center Gallery
August 19 – September 16, 2014
8:30 am – 5:00 pm Mon-Fri
Gallery Talk by Adrian Rhodes
11:30 am Tuesday, September 9
Adrian Rhodes is a native of Hartsville, S.C. She earned her B.F.A. from Winthrop University, and during her undergraduate studies she spent a semester studying fine art in Imatra, Finland. She completed her M.F.A. in painting and printmaking from Winthrop University and is currently teaching at Wingate University.
Artist’s Statement
“I am interested in studio practice as a way to question–I am interested in the act of making. I don’t try to illustrate an idea, rather I let process guide the piece and find its meaning in the method used to create it. Printmaking is an important part of my process. I create editions, and pull additional prints from the matrix that I deconstruct and use as college material in my mixed media pieces. This leads to recurring imagery across my work that becomes part of my personal iconography, and the meaning I find in these different images helps me to determine the meaning of the larger works.
“I like paper, texture, and color. I take cast off things and collage them into my work: onion bags, bits of string, and the mylar press bed covers marked by ink and registration marks. I pick up feathers, dead moths, bees, and scraps of books. Nothing is sacred, and nothing is trash. A “finished” piece might be deconstructed into components for many other paintings, or I might sweep up the studio floor and make a collage of whatever I find. Including these random bits of life in the work blurs the line between studio and sidewalk.
“My finished work reflects the enjoyment in manipulating materials: drawn mark making, paint manipulations, printmaking processes, collage and transfer techniques. I find the tension between rigid structural forms and organic, intuitive mark making reflects internal conflict. This tension explores a desire to control life, counterpoised against the futility of that effort. It is recognizing the correlations between my studio and the world outside that allows me to create work which reflects the meaning inherent in the search.”
World Consumerism – Bethany Luhman
Hyman Fine Arts Center Gallery
September 19 – November 6, 2014
8:30 am – 5:00 pm Mon-Fri
Bethany Luhman was born in Autumn, 1987 in Red Bank, New Jersey but spent most of her life in South Carolina. She graduated from Francis Marion University in Florence, SC with a Photography degree in December 2010. Bethany went on to Graduate school at Savannah College of Art and Design, which she is expected to graduate with her second Masters in Photography degree this fall. Bethany’s tends to create abstract images that alter the reality and question what the viewer is looking at. Her art subjects tend to be about issues that are happening in the world and the power of story that shapes our relationship with the world.
Artist’s Statement
“Ferenc Máté, author of A Reasonable Life, suggests that we seldom consider how much of our lives we surrender in return for some object we barely want, occasionally need, buy only because it was put before us. This is understandable given the workings of our society where without a job we succumb, where if we don’t want a job and are happy getting by we are then labeled irresponsible and non-contributing by society. He also wrote that if we hire a fleet of bulldozers and tear up half the countryside to build some monstrous factory, casino or mall, we are called entrepreneurs, job-creators, and stalwarts of the community. Perhaps we should all be shut away on some planet for the insane. Then again, maybe that is where we are.
“The effect of consumerism starts at an early age. Children while watching their favorite cartoons are also exposed to commercials showing images of toys and sugary cereals to entice children to want. However, those toys and sugary sweets are soon left in the cabinet or in the corner of a room, and then it’s on to the next item. Those children grow up knowing no better, unaware of the trap. Adults are faced with consumerist items every day, all day, with billboards, magazine advertisements, commercials, and even displays in windows as they walk down the street to work.
“Each image is made up of many found photographs sourced from the internet. The found images represent a single, amateur view of the locale. They are presented in color, but lack clarity and focus, a suggestion of the fleeting pleasure and subsequent disillusionment of consumption.”
Lowcountry Clay Sampler
Sponsored by cone 10 studios
Hyman Fine Arts Center Gallery
September 19 – November 6, 2014
8:30 am – 5:00 pm Mon-Fri
Originally founded by Susan Filley as ClayWorks in 2000, the current owners of cone 10 studios are Fiorenzo Berardozzi, Anne John and Susan Gregory. This is their third and largest space. cone 10 studios moved to the upper peninsula area of Charleston in June of 2010. The concept has always been to house a group of ceramicists sharing in the firing, finances and joy of a large gas-reduction kiln.
cone 10 studios offers memberships for studio space, classes in wheel throwing and ceramic sculpture, as well as exhibition events and a gallery of members’ work.
Susan Gregory
“Raised in Columbia, SC, I moved to the mountains of North Carolina after college in 1997 where I fell for clay with a turn at my friend’s wheel. Receiving my B.F.A in ceramics and painting at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, NC(2000), I became a member of cone 10 studios in 2003.
“Currently residing in San Francisco, I work in clay on both coasts and intermittently instruct courses at cone 10 studios. Design in my work is influenced by modernism, eastern form and contemporary fashion with an emphasis on functionality and the concept of everyday art through the medium of clay.”
Anne John
“In 1995 I began taking classes with Michael Welliver at a Community College in New Jersey. After seven years studying with Michael, my family relocated to Charleston. In 2003 I joined a group of diverse and talented clay artists at cone 10 studios where I have been a member, owner and instructor.
“My work is controlled and functional reflecting aspects of the natural surroundings in the South Carolina Lowcountry.”
Fiorenzo Berardozzi
Born in Italy, Fiorenzo Berardozzi was raised in South Dakota. He finished his M.F.A at University of North Carolina at Greensboro and came to cone 10 studios in 2005 as a member, owner and instructor. Fiorenzo works in contemporary ceramic sculpture as well as functional hand built pottery. He currently co-owns CBFB Tablescapes with Chip Burr.
Miyako Fujiwara
Born in Hokkaido, Japan, Miyako Fujiwara was interested in ceramics throughout her youth but did not start her relationship with clay until studying tea ceremony after graduating from college in Tokyo. Later she moved to the U.S. and became involved in the ceramics program at Harvard University while she was working there. Benefiting from that extensive program, she gained experience in all varieties of firing: soda, wood, raku, and saggar.
Miyako moved to Charleston at the end of 2010, became a member at cone 10 studios where she continues to gain practical experience. What she enjoys most about clay is the meditative quality coupled with physical action of throwing and the unpredictable aspect of glazing in high-fire. Still inspired by tea ceremony, she just loves that atmosphere. quiet, peaceful, serene, slow but beautiful and efficient movement, harmony with nature, the sound of the water. In addition to that, by working at the Ornithology Department of the Museum of Natural History and Anthropology, she handled 300,000 birds specimen from all over the world, including more than a 1,000 collections of nests and eggs. She continues to be fascinated by how beautiful and complicated nests are. She has been trying to capture nests and eggs in clay.
Holly T Benton
“I am a potter currently working in Charleston, South Carolina, and a member at cone 10 studios.
“I was raised in Charleston, South Carolina. I started working with clay in high school, and when I received my BAs in studio art and art history from Tulane University (New Orleans, LA), my concentration for the studio art degree was ceramics. I have also studied ceramics and sculpture at the Gibbes Museum School (Charleston, SC), Brookline Arts Center (Boston, MA), and Callanwolde Fine Arts Center (Atlanta, GA).
“The process of decay is a theme throughout my work. The abandoned and falling down houses in Charleston are an important influence. As well as the empty factories and warehouses that are so prevalent in both industrial and rural areas. The idea that nature takes back and reclaims the things people make is fascinating. I love the way vines cover everything and buildings crumble until only the skeleton of the structure is left.”
Annie Rhodes Lee
Annie is a native of Charleston, South Carolina who lived in New York City for many years before returning home a few years ago.
“It has always fascinated me how our eyes compel our hands to tell stories, to create metaphors that tie us to each other and ground us to the earth. My work strives to evoke a sensory response to contemporary narratives, and thereby tap into our more elusive memory of myth.”
Jason Luck
Jason is a sixth-generation potter originally from Seagrove, North Carolina, an area that has had a continuous pottery tradition since the late 1700s. Jason’s family started in the pottery business in the 1860s, and they have produced functional and decorative ware since.
Jason’s father (Sid Luck) and brother (Matt Luck) also continue the family tradition in Seagrove, and his father has work in the Smithsonian Institution and the White House.
“My father got me started on the wheel at age ten, and I’ve been pretty much turning pottery ever since. I like using the traditional techniques, and using obsolete terms (few people say “turning” instead of “throwing” or “chip” instead of “rib”). I prefer the old, traditional shapes I saw my father and grandfather make, but I’m not afraid to venture into the absurd (like face jugs).”
Chip Burr
Chip Burr started working with clay in 2001 in Miami. His first instructor was Juanita May who previously was the lead ceramicist at the Art Institute of Chicago. He worked and learned from her for the next 7 years. He became a member of cone 10 studios when he moved to Charleston.
Currently, he is co-owner of CBFB Tablescapes with Fiorenzo Berardozzi. They custom design and manufacture tableware for high-end restaurants. Their clients include Husk and McCrady’s restaurants in Charleston, SC and Chef Brian Massie’s new venture in Las Vegas, opening in October. CBFB Tablescapes works primarily in high fire stoneware and has clients nationwide as well as the company’s birthplace, Charleston, SC.
Senior Shows by Graduating FMU Visual Arts Majors
Catrice Ezekiel, Kimberly Hurter, Elizabeth Kinser, Philip McElveen, Black Sansbury, Shuvonta Smalls and Kree Terry
Hyman Fine Arts Center Gallery
November 11 – December 13, 2014
8:30 am – 5:00 pm Mon-Fri
Opening Reception 6:00-8:00 pm Tuesday, November 11
Senior shows are required of all students majoring in Visual Arts. These shows give students hands-on experience in selection and installation of artworks, publicity of exhibition, and external review by the University community and the general public.
The African-American Voice – South Carolina Arts Commission State Art Collection
Hyman Fine Arts Center Gallery
January 13 – February 12, 2015
8:30 am – 5:00 pm Mon-Fri
Works by African-American artists who are among the state’s best-known and widely celebrated practitioners, The African-American Voice includes 40 pieces of artwork from the State Art Collection by 25 African-American artists, including outsider artists Sam Doyle, Leroy Marshall, Richard Burnside and Dan Robert Miller, and academically trained artists with established careers such as Leo Twiggs, Arthur Rose, Tarleton Blackwell, MacArthur Goodwin, Jesse Guinyard, Joseph Gandy, Terry K. Hunter, Larry Jordan, Larry Lebby, Robert Spencer, and Winston Wingo. The sweetgrass basket tradition is represented by Mary Jackson, the best known practitioner working in this craft, and by Linda Blake, Marguerite Middleton, and Elizabeth Kinlaw. Artists such as Merton Simpson, Beverly Buchanan, Sheri Moore Change, Maxwell Taylor and Connie Floyd are all South Carolina–connected artists who no longer reside in the state.
The exhibition was created in response to the continued requests for works by African-American artists from the State Art Collection. Support of the collection is provided by the South Carolina Arts Foundation and First Citizens.
Lines of Possibility – Howard Frye
Impaired Perceptions – Brian Charles Steel
Mediate – 3-D Works by Leah Mulligan Cabinum
Hyman Fine Arts Center Gallery
February 17 – March 26, 2015
8:30 am – 5:00 pm Mon-Fri
Dr. Howard Frye
Dr. Howard Frye graduated from Marshall University with degrees in broadcasting and art education and has taught in West Virginia and Florida. In 2002, he received a doctorate of education (Ed D) in art education from Florida State University and he has been employed at Francis Marion University since 2003, where he is currently an associate professor of art education and the coordinator of the art education program.
“I grew up in the coal fields of southwestern West Virginia, a place where the opportunity to see art was–and still is–extremely limited. An important experience happened when I was in second or third grade. During a visit, my uncle drew pictures for me with a fountain pen on a stack of paper. I watched with fascination as he drew these fluid and beautiful lines, which magically became cars, ships, and animals. It made a strong impression on me. I’ve been interested in art ever since.
“I’m interested in creating artwork with an emphasis on sculptural shape or form and an attention to subtle transitions of value and a relationship between lines and surface. My aim is to simplify. I prefer, in general, to make quiet artworks rather than bold, energetic ones. I’m influenced most by the mediative quality I see in the artworks of Morandi, Chardin, and Buddhist art, the humor and quirkiness of folk artists, such as Bill Traylor, the power and timeliness of Egyptian sculpture, and the sublime beauty of Impressionist painting.
“Although I often draw from observation, most of my recent work has been either abstract or non-objective and usually the result of a strategies that allow for free association. Often I start a drawing without a notion of what I’m going to make. One strategy I’ve used is to draw hundreds of straight, parallel horizontal lines until an image or idea comes to mind. In addition, I will sometimes draw over photographs or my old drawings. While my approach to drawing may seem to offer considerable constraints, I’ve found that it often spurs my imagination to come up with odd juxtapositions in my artwork, which is something I’m keenly interested in.”
Brian Charles Steel
Brian Charles Steel is a fine art photographer and disability activist. He is best known for his black and white portrait series Impaired Perceptions. The series empowers people with physical impairments by encouraging individualization. His photography and writing have been featured on CNN and Disability Horizons. He travels the country exhibiting his work, and speaking about ableism. He has lectured on his work to various organizations including: NASA Ames Research Center and Abilities First.
Steel graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design with a master of fine arts in photography. He uses his passion for photography, love of people, and unique sense of humor to create portraits that are naturally beautiful and human. While attending SCAD, he worked as the photo editor for The Connector SCAD-Atlanta’s student newspaper. As photo editor, he won numerous awards including: 1st Place Best Photograph: Editorial Feature Award from the Georgia College Press Association Better Newspaper, 3rd place Front Page Layout Award from the Society for Collegiate Journalists, and 2nd place General Photography Award from the Georgia College Press Association in 2007 and 2008.
Steel worked as the official photographer for the Who’s Who in Asian American Communities Leaders and Legends Awards from 2009 to 2012. He presented as a guest lecturer on food photography at The Showcase School of Photography. Steel has been written about on Wikipedia. His portraits have been exhibited in galleries across the country. He curated a portrait series titled Inside the Outsider for Mason Murer Fine Art as a part of Atlanta Celebrates Photography. He also had a solo showing of his portrait series Impaired Perceptions in the same opening. His Impaired Perceptions work has also been featured on CNN.com and Disability Horizons.
“I was born with short fiber syndrome, which means that I have small and weak skeletal muscles however, my biggest handicap is how others react to it. I knew my body from birth, but I was taught that I was handicapped. The physicality of my body’s form is scientific fact however, the implications of how that form is contextualized and perceived is socially constructed. You cannot declare someone to be less capable with out an ascribed normality of ability. This is a series of black and white photographic portraits of myself and other physically impaired people dealing with the concept of perception and socially constructed identity. Some of my subjects have physical impairments that are not visible, which further challenges the notion that seeing is believing. You cannot know a person simply by looking at them; you have to individualize. Tenebrism and direct eye contact are used to aid the viewer in seeing each subject as an individual by making their eyes the point of focus. I also used chiaroscuro to highlight the natural beauty and form of each individual.
“My work strives to confront socially constructed perceptual fallacies that misrepresent people who are considered physically “different”. It challenges the viewer to examine their own perceptions and make any necessary corrections; it demands the right to be seen as an individual.”
Leah Mulligan Cabinum
Leah Mulligan Cabinum combines ordinary materials and other sensory components in innovative applications creating subtly immersive environments. Her site-specific installations, object-oriented sculptures and nontraditional drawings are made with sensitivity to the origins and physicality of the materials and, whenever possible, to the exhibition space. Outside of art making, Leah shares her passion through teaching visual art students. Originally from Athens, Georgia, she received a MFA in sculpture from Winthrop University, and a BFA in Metalwork from the University of Georgia.
“My work explores the connection between conceptual possibilities, symbolism, and the physicality of diverse materials. My creations act as a visual journal of life’s terrain. Life-altering events, as well as the mundane, inform my artistic response. My imagination is fueled by the discovery and understanding of the literal and figural landscapes of life.
“Time and again, I am drawn to untraditional materials, reflecting a lifelong tendency to repurpose and revalue objects. The manipulation of such materials begins as exploration, and the process of trial and error reveals the physical qualities of various media by defining its limits and usability. As the work takes shape, symbolism emerges, and often relates to the universal ebb and flow of life. The representation of an abstract idea conveys the deeper meaning of the art object and is further emphasized by the chosen materials. My intention is to evoke an idea or feeling rather than to depict a definite image, allowing mystery to unfold, and provoking others to interpret their own sensitivity to the work.”
Senior Show by FMU Visual Arts Majors:
Brittany Davis, Shana Kubilius, Ciera Hunt, Mark Keller, Allison Triplett and Alexandra Craig
Hyman Fine Arts Center Gallery
March 31 – April 17
8:30 am – 5:00 pm Mon-Fri
Opening Reception 6:00-8:00 pm, March 31
Senior shows are required of all students majoring in Visual Arts. These shows give students hands-on experience in selection and installation of artworks, publicity of exhibition, and external review by the University community and the general public.
There will be opening receptions at 6:00 pm on March 31 and Tuesday, April 21.
Senior Show by FMU Visual Arts Majors:
Chris Fogner, Ashley Walker, Sharika Hooks and Thomas Bilder
Hyman Fine Arts Center Gallery
April 21 – May 9, 2015
8:30 am – 5:00 pm Mon-Fri
Senior shows are required of all students majoring in Visual Arts. These shows give students hands-on experience in selection and installation of artworks, publicity of exhibition, and external review by the University community and the general public.
There will be opening receptions at 6:00 pm on March 31 and Tuesday, April 21.
Works by Ceramics and 3D Design Classes
Hyman Fine Arts Center Gallery
April 28 – May 9, 2015
8:30 am – 5:00 pm Mon-Fri
A showcase of new works created during the current semester by students learning skills in visual arts classes.
Paintings by Mary Bentz Gilkerson
Hyman Fine Arts Center Gallery
May 12 – August 12, 2015
8:30 am – 5:00 pm Mon-Thur
Mary Bentz Gilkerson is a South Carolina contemporary artist who is passionate about landscape, the environment and sense of place. Her paintings and prints draw from the landscapes of rural Charleston, Edisto Island, the Ace Basin and the Congaree, focusing on the tension between the fragility of the environment and the power of the natural forces of earth and water.
Gilkerson holds an MFA in drawing and painting from the University of South Carolina. A native South Carolinian, she lives and works in Columbia where she is a professor of art at Columbia College. She has received grants from the S.C. Arts Commission and the Cultural Council of Richland and Lexington Counties in addition to having been selected as a Southern Arts Federation Fellowship Finalist. Her work is in the permanent collections of McKissick Museum, Palmetto Health, Morris Communications Company, and Seibels Bruce Group, among others.
