The Salon I: Installation Photographs

(AAB Photography)

The Salon III: Exhibition Preview

Artists in the exhibition include Karel Appel, Jeri Burdick, Carl Blair, Lynn Chadwick, Steven Chapp, Corneille, Jeff Donovan, Jacques Doucet, Phil Garrett, Herbert Gentry, Tonya Gregg, John Hultberg, Richard Hunt, Sjaak Korsten, Lucebert, Reiner Mährlein, Sam Middleton, Eric Miller, Joan Mitchell, Dorothy Netherland, Marcelo Novo, Hannes Postma, Edward Rice, Anton Rooskens, Kees Salentijn, Laura Spong, Brown Thornton, Bram van Velde, Katie Walker, David Yaghjian and Paul Yanko.

Karel Appel

Walking With My Bird, 1979
Lithograph, 139/160
21 1/4 x 29 1/4 in
$ 1,450

Jeri Burdick

Untitled, n.d.
Monotype
11 x 7 1/2 in
$150

Lynn Chadwick

Two Sitting Figures III, 1971

Lithograph, 103/150

30 x 22 in.

$ 675

Steven Chapp

Landed II, 2004
Monotype
12 x 15 in.
SOLD

Jeff Donovan

Turtle & Burning Temple, 2000
Woodcut and pastel
ed. of 24
12 3/4 x 8 in.
$ 250

Phil Garrett

Kitakata Runner I, 2001
Monotype/Chine Colle
10 x 8 in
$1,000

Richard Hunt

Untitled, 1978

Lithograph

Lucebert 

De Olympiers, n.d.

Silkscreen, 36/200

$ 550

Reiner Mährlein

Variation IV, 2006
Steel and granite embossing, 1/1
19 x 12 in.
$ 675

Joan Mitchell

Champs, 1990

Lithograph, 94/125

$ 1,700

Marcelo Novo

Lightness, 2008

Linocut

30 x 22 in.

$ 625

Hannes Postma

Kleine Gevechten, 1965

Etching

$ 400

Edward Rice

Untitled (Power Works), 2002

Monotype

23 1/2 x 11 1/5 in.

$ 1,250

Kees Salentijn

Dialogos (Dialogue), 1998

Silkscreen, E.A.

29 1/2 x 22 in.

$ 500 (unframed)

Laura Spong

Black Spiral On Red, 1999
Woodcut, 5/12
12 x 9 in.
$ 200

Hollis Brown Thornton

The Earth On The Back Of The Giant Turtle (Lowes), 2008

Acrylic, carbon transfer on canvas

46 x 30 in.

$ 2,400

Bran van Velde

Untitled, 1978

Lithograph, 48/100

$ 1,100

David Yaghjian

One Hand, 2007
Monotype
22 x 18 in.
$ 830

(unframed $ 680)

The Salon III: Installation Photographs

(AAB Photography)

The Salon III: Printmaking Demo Schedule

Printmaking Demonstrations:

Sunday, Jan. 18, 3 – 5 p.m., Marcelo Novo, Print Gocco

Sunday, Jan. 25, 3 – 5 p.m., Phil Garrett, Monotype

Saturday, Jan. 31, 3 – 5 p.m., H. Brown Thornton, Photo Transfer 

Sunday, Feb. 1, 3 – 5 p.m., Steven Chapp, Linocut & Photopolymer Prints

For more information, contact Wim Roefs at if ART:

(803) 255-0068/ (803) 238-2351 – if-art-gallery@sc.twcbc.com

For examples of work by the artists giving demonstrations, please click on the following links: Marcelo Novo, Phil Garrett, H. Brown Thornton, and Steven Chapp.  

Laura Spong: Still Screaming & Leo Twiggs: Targeted Man: Installation Photographs

(AAB Photography)

Carl Blair's Flora & Fauna: April 17- May 9, 2009

At its location on Lincoln Street, Columbia, SC, if ART Gallery presents Carl Blair’s Flora & Fauna, an exhibition of wooden animal sculptures and new paintings by Greenville artist Carl Blair. This will be the first Columbia exhibition by the veteran artist featuring sculpture. The exhibition also will be on view during Artista Vista 2009, April 23-25.

Carl Blair’s Flora & Fauna refers to the plant and animal life of Carl Blair’s mind, some of it of literal places and critters, other simply of Blair’s imagination. Nature always has been Carl Blair’s main visual inspiration – nature and the countryside in general. Some of his animal sculptures are representative, and all of them, fanciful. They are a reminder of Blair’s upbringing on a farm and of his insistence that as a youngster, he spent more time with animals than with human beings. To some extent, Blair regards his animal sculptures as self-portraits.

Nature typically is the basis of his heavily abstracted paintings, whether it’s the flatlands of the Midwest or the more mountainous terrain of the South Carolina Upstate. There, Blair lives on Paris Mountain, just outside of Greenville and near Paris Mountain State Park. He has lived there since the 1970s, when the place was still mostly undeveloped.

Kansas native and Greenville, S.C., resident Carl Blair in 2005 received South Carolina’s Elizabeth O’Neil Verner Governor’s Award for the Arts for Lifetime Achievement. He has been as an artist, administrator, educator and a driving force in South Carolina arts since in 1957, when he began teaching at Bob Jones University, from which he retired in 1998. He has shown in galleries and museums all along the East Coast as well as abroad. His prominence as a painter and sculptor has increased steadily and has been marked by several museum retrospectives since 1995. In 1999, he was included in “100 Years/100 Artists: Views of the 20th Century in South Carolina Arts,” the South Carolina State Museum’s look back at the 20th century.

if ART Artists Laura Spong and Paul Yanko at the Greenville (SC) County Museum of Art

Paul Yanko

GreenMachine, 2004

Oil on canvas

48 x 48 inches

if ART Gallery artists Laura Spong and Paul Yanko are represented in the current Greenville County Museum of Art exhibition Ideas Distanced From Objects, which is on view until July 27.

To see the Greenville County Museum of Art exhibition schedule, go here.

Included in the exhibition, which also includes works by Brian Rutenberg, Corrie McCallum and others, are Spong's painting Is It After Me Again? (2007, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches) and Yanko's GreenMachine (2004, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches).

The Greenville County Museum of Art acquired the Spong painting from if ART Gallery in August, 2007, and the Yanko painting, in July 2008. GreenMachine was previously shown in the December 2006 if ART exhibition Construction Crew II at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios, Columbia, S.C.

Laura Spong

Is It After Me Again?, 2007

Oil on canvas

48 x 48 inches

Laura Spong: Still Screaming & Leo Twiggs: Targeted Man, February 5-17, 2009

For its February 2009 exhibition, if ART presents Gallery 80808/Vista Studios in Columbia, S.C., two solo exhibitions by some of South Carolina most prominent veteran artists, Columbia’s Laura Spong and Orangeburg’s Leo Twiggs.

Both artists will present new work. Spong will show her trademark Abstract Expressionist oil paintings. Twiggs will exhibit a new series of batik paintings around the theme of “targeted man,” featuring figures adorned with a bull’s eye or target.

Laura Spong (b. 1926) is among South Carolina’s most prominent non-objective painters. In the past three years, Spong has further increased her reputation with several solo exhibitions, including a retrospective at the University of South Carolina’s McMaster Gallery. For her 2006 exhibition, Laura Spong at 80, Columbia’s if ART published a 32-page catalogue. In addition to the S.C. State Art Collection, Spong’s work was purchased recently by the Greenville (S.C.) County Museum of Art and the S.C. State Museum. Three of her paintings also are in the Contemporary Carolina Collection, which was established in 2008 at the Medical University of South Carolina’s Ashley River Tower in Charleston. Spong maintains a studio at Vista Studios in Columbia.

Leo Twiggs (b. 1934) is a native of St. Stephen, S.C., who lives in Orangeburg, S.C., where he taught art at South Carolina State University from 1964 until 1998 and established a museum. Twiggs is widely seen as one of the most important South Carolina artists since the 1960s. His career retrospective, Myths and Metaphors: The Art Of Leo Twiggs, organized by the Georgia Museum of Art and accompanied by a catalogue, completed a two-year tour at the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia in April 2006. Twiggs has had dozens of solo exhibitions in museums and galleries in the Southeast and beyond, including the Studio Museum in Harlem. In 1964, he received a graduate degree in art from New York University and in 1970 was the first African American to receive an Ed.D. in art education from the University of Georgia. In 1981, he was the first to receive as an individual South Carolina’s highest art award, the Elizabeth O’Neil Verner Governor’s Award for the Arts.

The Salon III: January 15- February 4, 2009

For its January 2009 exhibition, if ART Gallery presents Salon III, an exhibition of prints by gallery artists at if ART Gallery, 1223 Lincoln St., Columbia, S.C. The opening reception will be Thursday, January 15, 2009, 5 – 10 p.m. The exhibition will be installed salon-style at the gallery’s first floor and continues if ART’s salon-style exhibitions; in December 2008, Salon I & II took place simultaneously at the gallery and Gallery 80808/Vista Studios in Columbia.

Among the printmaking techniques represented in the exhibition are etchings, dry points, lithographs, woodcuts, linocuts, photopolymer prints, embossings, monotypes, silkscreens and photo transfers.

During the exhibition, gallery artists Steven Chapp of Easley, S.C., Phil Garrett of Greenville, S.C., Brown Thornton of Aiken, S.C., and Marcelo Novo of Columbia will give demonstrations of various printmaking techniques. For times and demonstrated techniques, see above.

Artists in the exhibition include Karel Appel, Jeri Burdick, Carl Blair, Lynn Chadwick, Steven Chapp, Corneille, Jeff Donovan, Jacques Doucet, Phil Garrett, Herbert Gentry, Tonya Gregg, John Hultberg, Richard Hunt, Sjaak Korsten, Lucebert, Reiner Mährlein, Sam Middleton, Eric Miller, Joan Mitchell, Dorothy Netherland, Marcelo Novo, Hannes Postma, Edward Rice, Anton Rooskens, Kees Salentijn, Laura Spong, Brown Thornton, Bram van Velde, Katie Walker, David Yaghjian and Paul Yanko.

if ARTwalk: Salon I & II: December 11- 24, 2008

For its December 2008 exhibition, if ART Gallery presents The Salon I & II, an exhibition at two Columbia, SC, locations: if ART Gallery and Gallery 80808/Vista Studios. On Thursday, December 11, 2008, 5 – 10 p.m., if ART will hold opening receptions at both locations. The ifART Walk will be on Lady and Lincoln Streets, between both locations, which are around the corner from each other.

The exhibitions will present art by if ART Gallery artists, installed salon-style at both Gallery 80808 and if ART. Artists in the exhibitions include two new additions to if ART Gallery, Columbia ceramic artist Renee Rouillier and the prominent African-American collage and mixed-media artist Sam Middleton, an 81-year-old expatriate who has lived in the Netherlands since the early 1960s.

Other artists in the exhibition include Karel Appel, Aaron Baldwin, Jeri Burdick, Carl Blair, Lynn Chadwick, Steven Chapp, Stephen Chesley, Corneille, Jeff Donovan, Jacques Doucet, Phil Garrett, Herbert Gentry, Tonya Gregg, Jerry Harris, Bill Jackson, Sjaak Korsten, Peter Lenzo, Sam Middleton, Eric Miller, Dorothy Netherland, Marcelo Novo, Matt Overend, Anna Redwine, Paul Reed, Edward Rice, Silvia Rudolf, Kees Salentijn, Laura Spong, Tom Stanley, Christine Tedesco, Brown Thornton, Leo Twiggs, Bram van Velde, Katie Walker, Mike Williams, David Yaghjian, Paul Yanko and Don Zurlo.

Meet Phil Garrett & See His New Horse Paintings: July 14, 2009

At its location at 1223 Lincoln Street, Columbia, SC, if ART Gallery presents an evening with Greenville, S.C., painter and printmaker Phil Garrett. The gallery will be showing a new body of Garrett’s paintings and monotypes of horses. The horse image is and has been for decades among Garrett’s best-known and most successful motifs. Garrett will be present on Tuesday, July 14, at the gallery from 6 – 9 p.m.

Phil Garrett (b. 1948) is among his native South Carolina’s most prominent artists. In addition to his paintings, he is known as a printmaker. Garrett studied printmaking at the Honolulu Academy and received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, where in the 1970s he also did post-graduate studies in print making. From the mid-1980s through the early 1990s he worked with Tamarind Master Printer Cappy Kuhn at her print studio, Winstone Press, in Mocksville, N.C. In 1998, Garrett founded King Snake Press in Greenville, S.C., where he has produced monotypes with dozens of artists. He is represented in the S.C. State Art Collection and has exhibited at the Greenville County (S.C.) Museum of Art, the Asheville (N.C.) Museum of Art, the Print Club of Philadelphia and in many commercial and institutional galleries. Garrett’s prints and paintings are in several public and private collections in Europe, Japan and the United States.

Edward Rice Paintings, 1996-2008: November 6- December 6, 2008

At its location on Lincoln Street, Columbia, SC, if ART Gallery next month will present North Augusta painter Edward Rice’s first solo exhibition in Columbia since 1992. With the exhibition, if ART Gallery will publish a 40-page, full-color catalogue with essays by Richard Gruber, director of New Orleans’ Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and if ART owner Wim Roefs.

The exhibition will provide an overview of Rice’s paintings since 1996 and include Rice’s first strictly non-objective, minimalist paintings, Dublin I, II, III, all of 2008. In addition, the show will contain architectural, landscape and botanical paintings, some done recently in Ireland.

The exhibition runs from Nov. 6– Dec. 6, 2008. The artist’s reception is Thursday, Nov. 6, from 5:00 – 10:00 p.m. The exhibition will be at if ART Gallery, 1223 Lincoln St., Columbia, SC.

Edward Rice (b. 1953) has his studio in his hometown of North Augusta, SC, and lives in Augusta, Ga. He is one of the Southeast’s most prominent contemporary painters. Among the museums that have his work in their collections are the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans; the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens; the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta; the Columbia Museum of Art, McKissick Museum and South Carolina State Museum, all in Columbia; the Greenville County Museum of Art in Greenville, SC; and the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, SC.

Rice has had solo museum exhibitions at the Morris Museum, the Gibbes Museum of Art, the Greenville County Museum of Art, the Chattahoochee Valley Art Museum in La Grange, Ga., the McKissick Museum and the Ogden Museum. Rice also was represented in The Story of the South: Art and Culture, 1890 – 2003, the inaugural exhibition at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans. He was included in 100 Years/100 Artists: Views of the 20th Century in South Carolina Art at the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia, a survey of 20th-century art in the state. “Edward Rice: Architectural Works, 1978-1998” was published by the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art in Augusta, and “Edward Rice: Recent Monotypes,” by the Morris Museum of Art in 2003.

The Line According To: August 29- September 9, 2008

For its August – September exhibition, if ART presents at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios The Line According to Roland Albert, Mary Gilkerson, Sjaak Korsten & Kees Salentijn. German artist Albert will present mixed media, mostly wood-based sculptures, and Columbia’s Gilkerson, a new series of monotypes. Dutch painter Salentijn will show paintings, mixed media works on paper, painted ceramic plates, lithographs and silkscreens. Korsten, another Dutch artist, will show mixed media works on paper. Korsten has recently joined if ART Gallery, and the upcoming exhibition will be his first in the United States.

Albert (b. 1944) is a widely respected painter and sculptor in Germany. He is part of the artists’ exchange between Columbia and its German sister city of Kaiserslautern. Albert studied with the famous Greek-American sculptor Kosta Alex in Paris in 1964. In 1970, he graduated from the prestigious Munich Academy of Fine Arts. Albert’s work overall fits European post-World War II contemporary traditions. He shares Joseph Beuys’ love for rough and unfinished materials. Like Art Informel artists such as Spaniard Antoni Tapies and fellow German Emil Schumacher, Albert considers not just forms and shapes important but also the tactile and physical quality of his materials.

Gilkerson (b. 1958) has recently completed monotypes for her Three River series based on Columbia’s Congaree, Saluda and Broad rivers. The sometimes strongly abstracted works are based on photos and drawings Gilkerson made earlier this year during walks along the riverbanks. Gilkerson for many years has been prominent on the art scene of the South Carolina Midlands as an artist, critic and curator. She teaches art at Columbia College in her hometown of Columbia. Gilkerson holds BFA, MA and MFA degrees from the University of South Carolina.

Korsten (b. 1957) is widely known and respected in the Netherlands. Not unlike Albert, he works in established post-World War II European modern and contemporary traditions. His work is related to Art Informel artists such as Tapies, Jaap Wagemaker, Wols, Jean Fautrier and Manalo Millares. Much of the focus in their work and that of Korsten is on materials and surface. While Korsten’s work is heavily abstracted, he typically includes representative elements. Korsten’s work has been shown at major European fairs, including TEFAF Maastricht, PAN Amsterdam and the Cologne Art Fair.

Salentijn (b. 1947) is among The Netherlands’ most prominent painters. The initial inspiration leading to his mature style came from post-war American art and from Spanish painters such as Tapies, Antonio Saura, and later Millares. Salentijn developed a personal style that combined the expressionist, painterly swath with smaller but equally expressionist marks that are quick and slightly nervous but sure. Combining vigorous painting with often-childlike imagery, Salentijn’s work eventually placed him in the Northern European, post-war CoBrA tradition of strongly expressionist, abstracted art that containes representational elements. Salentijn’s increased use of figuration in the 1990s confirmed this link. His work is in several European museums. In addition to the 1982 Chicago Art Fair, his work has been represented at major European art fairs, including Art Fair Basel, TEFAF Maastricht, Kunstmesse Cologne and KunstRAI Amsterdam.

Marcelo Novo: Buenos Aires/Columbia, SC: April 17- May 7, 2008

The upcoming exhibition at if ART Gallery, Marcelo Novo: Buenos Aires/Columbia, SC, 1985–1994, opens to the public on Friday, April 18. It will run through May 7, 2008. The exhibition will present early work by Argentine artist Marcelo Novo, a native of Buenos Aires who has lived in Columbia since 1992. Novo (b. 1963) will show paintings and prints, including monotypes, etchings, drypoints, lithos and prints combining several techniques.

Novo has been in dozens of exhibitions across the country and abroad, including at New York City’s Cinque Gallery, the Deland Museum of Art in Deland, Fla., and Buenos Aires’ Centro Cultural Recoleta. Novo’s 10-year retrospective was at the Sumter (S.C.) Gallery of Art in 2003. In 2004-2005, Novo developed with choreographer Miriam Barbosa the ballet “Catharsis,” performed by the University of South Carolina Dance Company. Novo was the curator for “Accessibility 2005: Transplanted,” an installation art project in Sumter, featuring six Latin American artists living in the United States.

Abstracted in Nature: March 21-April 1, 2008

For its March exhibition, if ART presents at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios Abstracted In Nature, featuring Columbia artist Laura Spong and German artists Reiner Mährlein and Silvia Rudolf. Spong will present a new series of her non-objective paintings. The work includes Good Report, Bad Report, No Report, a 2007 composite painting of 100 x 80 inches, consisting of 25 paintings of 20 x 16 inches each, arranged in a five-by-five grid. Rudolf will show non-objective and abstracted, figurative paintings and drawings. Mährlein will show large and small metal-and-granite sculptures as well as one-of-a-kind rust prints and embossings.

Mährlein (German, b. 1959) is a widely acclaimed artist in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. He is part of a regular exchange between artists from Columbia and its German sister city, Kaiserslautern. Mährlein studied art in Nuremberg and at the prestigious Ecole Nationale Superieur de Beaux-Arts in Paris. He has created large, public sculptures throughout his home region and has exhibited widely throughout Europe. The medium for both of Mährlein’s art forms is granite and steel. Mährlein creates the prints by pressing rusty steel plates against paper and paper against granite surfaces. This results in abstract works with a rich and rough, three-dimensional and architectural feel.

Rudolf (German, b. 1957), who received her art education in Kaiserslautern, lived in Argentina between 1994 and 2000. There, she founded the artist group “transit.” In the past two years, she has lived in New York. Her work has been in solo and group exhibitions in Germany, the United States, Argentina and several other European and Latin American countries. Group shows include the first Biennale of Modern Art at the Museo de las Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her solo shows include one at the Museos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires.

Columbia, S.C., artist Laura Spong (b. 1926) is among South Carolina’s most prominent non-objective painters. In the past two years, Spong has further increased her reputation with four solo exhibitions, including a retrospective at the University of South Carolina’s McMaster Gallery. For her 2006 exhibition, Laura Spong at 80, Columbia’s if ART published a 32-page catalogue. In addition to the S.C. State Art Collection, Spong’s work was purchased recently by the Greenville (S.C.) County Museum of Art and the S.C. State Museum. Three of her paintings also are in the Contemporary Carolina Collection, which was established in 2008 at the Medical University of South Carolina’s Ashley River Tower in Charleston.

The Inventory: February 15-26, 2008

For its February exhibition, if ART presents The Inventory, a group exhibition of artists from if ART Gallery. The show will consist of many new works by if ART artists as well as older pieces from the gallery’s inventory.

Included in the show will be work by Columbia artists Jeff Donovan, Mary Gilkerson, Marcelo Novo, Anna Redwine and David Yaghjian. Other South Carolina artists include Carl Blair, Jeri Burdick, Phil Garrett, Bill Jackson, Peter Lenzo, Dorothy Netherland, Matt Overend, Edward Rice, Tom Stanley, Christine Tedesco, H. Brown Thornton, Leo Twiggs, Katie Walker and Paul Yanko. Furthermore, the show will present work by former South Carolina residents Tonya Gregg, Eric Miller and Andy Moon. Also included are California collage artist Jerry Harris, Dutch painter Kees Salentijn and German artists Roland Albert, Klaus Hartmann and Silvia Rudolf.

Construction Crew III: December 7-18, 2007

For its holiday exhibition at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios in Columbia, S.C., if ART presents Construction Crew III, a group exhibition with work by South Carolina artists Steven Chapp, Jeff Donovan, Janet Orselli and Edward Rice. Like the first two if ART Construction Crew exhibitions in December 2005 and 2006, the show consists of two-dimensional and three-dimensional art that has strong constructional or architectural characteristics. The exhibition opens Friday, Dec. 7, with a reception from 5 –10 p.m. and runs through Dec. 18. Opening hours are weekdays, 11 a.m. – 7 p.m., Saturdays, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m., and Sundays 1 – 5 p.m. Chapp, Donovan, Orselli and Rice are represented by if ART Gallery, 1223 Lincoln St., (803) 238-2351, where additional works of art by all four artists will be on view.

Chapp will be showing monotypes, intaglio prints, drawings and paintings from the 1980s through last week. Donovan will present several major new ceramic sculptures. Orselli will show reconstructed and reconfigured old baby-carriages-turned-art-objects. Among the paintings Rice will be showing is a new series of barn paintings, in which the same barn structure is painted a dozen times in different colors.

Easley, S.C., native Steven Chapp (b. 1952) is a native of Kansas City, MO. He holds an MFA in printmaking and drawing from Clemson University and a BFA from Appalachian State University. He has shown in galleries and museums throughout the region, including the Greenville County (S.C.) Museum of Art, the Burroughs and Chapin Museum in Myrtle Beach, S.C. and the Pickens County (S.C.) Museum of Art and History. He worked on two projects with artists Christo and Jean Claude, in Kansas City in 1978 and Key Biscayne, Fla., in 1983.

Jeff Donovan (b. 1957) has been a fixture on the Columbia, S.C., art scene for many years. The painter and ceramic sculptor was born in Millford, Del., and studied at the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, Fla., and the Penland School of Crafts in Penland, N.C. Donovan has exhibited widely throughout South and North Carolina. He is represented in the Mark B. Coplan Collection of South Carolina Art, the prominent ceramic sculpture collection of Ron Porter and Joe Price in Columbia and in the collection of Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina. Donovan also works as an art conservator with ReNewell Fine Art Conservation in Columbia.

Janet Orselli (b. 1954) was born in Columbia, S.C., where she lived until November 2007, when she moved to Mill Spring, N.C. In 1976, she graduated from Clemson Unversity with a degree in psychology. In the 1990s she gradually switched careers from the field of mental health to art. While establishing herself as an artist, she earned an M.F.A. from Clemson in 2001. She was selected for the 2001 and 2004 South Carolina Triennial exhibitions as well as the 2004 traveling exhibition “South Carolina Birds: A Fine Arts Exhibition.” Earlier this year, Orselli has a solo show at O.K. Harris Gallery in New York City. Orselli has done large installations at the Gibbes Museum in Charleston, S.C., the Burroughs & Chapin Museum in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C. Orselli has received several residencies and fellowships, including at Anderson Ranch in Colorado and in Kaiserslautern, Germany. She is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Fellowship.

North Augusta, S.C., native Edward Rice (b. 1953) lives in Augusta, Ga. He is one of the Southeast’s most prominent contemporary painters. Rice’s solo exhibitions include those at the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, S.C., the Greenville County (S.C.) Museum of Art, the Chattahoochee Valley Art Museum in La Grange, Ga., and the McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C. Rice also was represented in The Story of the South: Art and Culture, 1890 – 2003, the inaugural exhibition at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans. “Edward Rice: Architectural Works, 1978-1998” was published by the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art in Augusta, Ga., and “Edward Rice: Recent Monotypes,” by the Morris Museum of Art in 2003.

Carl Blair & Anna Redwine: Old and New: October 12-23, 2007

From October 12 – 23, if ART will present at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios two solo exhibitions: Carl Blair, Old & New, and Anna Redwine: New. The exhibition opens October 12 with a reception from 5:00 – 10:00 p.m. Opening hours for Gallery 80808/Vista Studios will be expanded during the if ART exhibition. They will be weekdays, 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.; Sat., 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.; Sun, 1 – 5 p.m. Gallery 80808/Vista Studios is located at 808 Lady St., Columbia.

Carl Blair, of Greenville, will present oil and acrylic paintings on canvas and paper, gouaches, monotypes and etchings from the early 1970s through 2006. Most of the work suggests the landscape and is executed in an abstracted, lively, colorful, expressionist manner. Anna Redwine of Columbia will show vivid and energetic graphite drawings, on gessoed panels, of insects and other animals. Redwine produced the work earlier this year during a residency at Paris Mountain State Park near Greenville. Blair, too, created most of his work at Paris Mountain, where he lives.

Kansas native Blair (b. 1932) in 2005 received the Elizabeth O’Neil Verner Governor’s Award for the Arts for Lifetime Achievement. He has been as an artist, administrator and educator a driving force in South Carolina arts since he appeared on the scene in 1957. His prominence as a painter and sculptor has increased steadily and has been marked by several museum retrospectives since 1995. In 1999, he was included in “100 Years/100 Artists: Views of the 20th Century in South Carolina Arts,” the South Carolina State Museum’s look back at the 20th century. Blair in 1998 retired from teaching at Bob Jones University in Greenville, where he taught for four decades.

Anna Redwine (b. 1978), a native of New Orleans, in 2000 received a BA in English from the University of Mississippi. In 2006, she received her MFA at the University of South Carolina art department. Her April 2006 masters’ thesis show, Life In One Breath, was at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios, organized by if ART.

The Fame Factor: September 7-18, 2007

In September, work by world-famous artists such as Joan Mitchell, Karel Appel, Lynn Chadwick, Wilfredo Lam and Bram van Velde will be in The Fame Factor, a group show at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios in Columbia organized by if ART Gallery. The exhibition also will include if ART Gallery artists Leo Twiggs, Edward Rice, Kees Salentijn,Virginia Scotchie, Laura Spong and Paul Reed. The Fame Factor will explore the concept of fame, especially the relativity of fame.

The exhibition opens September 7 with a reception from 5:00 – 10:00 p.m. and runs through September 18. Opening hours for Gallery 80808/Vista Studios will be expanded during the if ART exhibition. They will be weekdays, 11:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.; Sat., 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.; Sun, 1:00 – 5:00 p.m.

Other American artists with national and even international reputations in the show are Richard Hunt, Benny Andrews, Ibram Lassaw, Paul Reed, John Hultberg and Sam Middleton, an American artist who has lived in the Netherlands since the early 1960s. Dutch artists with international fame in addition to Appel and Van Velde will be Corneille, Ger Lataster, Hannes Postma, Kees Salentijn and Lucebert. Furthermore, the show will present French artist Jacques Doucet and Belgian artist Reinhoud.

Reinhoud and Doucet both were part of the legendary CoBrA group of Northern European artists from the late 1940s and 1950s, which also included Appel, Corneille and Lucebert. “CoBrA” stands for Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam, the cities or origin of most of the major figures in the group. Another artist in the show, Wilfredo Lam, a Cuban artist who had a vast international reach, exhibited once with CoBrA, in the early 1950s, though he was not a member. All of these artists are in the collections of major American museums. Dutchman Salentijn works in a post-CoBrA style.

Hunt, Lassaw, Chadwick and Reinhoud are sculptors. All will be represented in the exhibition with limited-edition lithographs. Hunt, from Chicago, is one of the country’s most famous living sculptors, in part for his many public sculptures. Lassaw was one of the main sculptors in the New York School and a core figure on the city’s 1940s-1950s Abstract Expressionist scene. Chadwick is one of the most prominent figures among British sculptors of the generation of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth.

Sam Middleton, born in Harlem, NY, but living in the Netherlands, is known for his collages inspired by jazz; the exhibition will show some of his silkscreens. Lataster is one of the Netherlands’ most prominent Abstract-Expressionist painters; his work is in several major American museums. Postma established a big reputation in Europe in the 1960s with his etchings and aquatints, some of which will be in the show. Bram van Velde, who spent most of life and career in Paris, is a legendary figure among mid-20th-century European abstractionists.

Hultberg was part of the New York School scene but subsequently moved to California. Andrews was from Georgia but built his career in New York City, becoming one of the country’s most prominent African-American artists, who increasingly gained traction in the wider art community. Reed was with Kenneth Noland, Morris Louis and Gene Davis among the original Washington Color Field painters of the 1960s. Mitchell is simply one of the most famous Abstract-Expressionist painters.

Twiggs, from Orangeburg, S.C., most likely is the country’s most prominent pioneer with batik as a contemporary art medium. Scotchie is a ceramist with an international reputation who teaches at the University of South Carolina. Rice, from North Augusta, S.C., is represented in many museums in the Southeast. Spong’s reputation has grown by leaps in recent years and is now among South Carolina’s best-known abstract painters.

“The idea of the show is to explore how relative fame is,” if ART Wim Roefs said. “Several feet worth of books and catalogues on Appel, and a few feet on Mitchell, don’t change the fact that among people attending this show, Laura Spong is probably better known – and she makes do with a single 32-page catalogue. Leo Twiggs also is better known here than Appel and Mitchell. Someone like Van Velde is legendary in Europe. Though he had New York gallery shows in the United States, and though his work is in many major American museums, he is at best obscure around here. In general, of course, a lot of famous European artists aren’t well-known in the United States.”

“Lassaw really was one of the major sculptors among Abstract Expressionists, but, of course, sculptors, except for David Smith, played third fiddle in the movement compared to the painters. Reed was one of six artists in the first nationally traveling exhibition of Washington Color Field painters, with Kenneth Noland and Morris Louis, and he makes the art-history books. Still, he’s mainly known among art insiders, though the renewed recent appreciation of color-field painting has giving him new exposure, too.”

Laura Spong: The Early Years: August 21- September 8, 2007

The Greenville County (S.C.) Museum of Art has acquired Columbia artist Laura Spong’s 2007 painting Is It After Me? The painting is oil on canvas and measures 48 x 58 inches. The painting was included in the recent Greenville Museum exhibition Studio Visits and was featured on the cover of the museum’s June membership newsletter. The purchase went through if ART Gallery in Columbia, which represents Spong (b. 1926).

The Greenville Museum purchase follows last year’s acquisition of two Spong paintings by the South Carolina State Art Collection, which purchased Spong’s late-1950s painting White Flowers and Dancing Under The Street Light of 2003.

Meanwhile, if ART Gallery is showing Laura Spong: The Early Works. The exhibition, which runs through September 8, consists mainly of paintings by Spong from the 1950s and 1960s. Attached is an essay by if ART owner Wim Roefs with more information about Spong and her work from that period.

In September, Spong will be in The Fame Factor, a group show at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios in Columbia organized by if ART Gallery. The exhibition will explore the concept of fame, especially the relativity of fame. The show will include limited edition prints by world famous artists, including lithographs by Joan Mitchell, Karel Appel, Lynn Chadwick, Wilfredo Lam and Bram van Velde.

In addition to Spong, the exhibition – which opens on September 7 and runs through September 18–also will include South Carolinians Leo Twiggs, Edward Rice and Virginia Scotchie. Other American artists in the show are Richard Hunt, Benny Andrews, Ibram Lassaw, Paul Reed, John Hultberg and Sam Middleton, an American artist who has lived in the Netherlands since the early 1960s. Dutch artists in addition to Appel will be Corneille, Ger Lataster, Hannes Postma, Kees Salentijn and Lucebert. Furthermore, the show will present French artist Jacques Doucet and Belgian artist Reinhoud.

Several paintings in the current Spong exhibition of early works at if ART Gallery were included in the Greenville Museum’s Studio Visits exhibition, which ran from April 18 – June 10. The Greenville exhibition also included if ART Gallery artists David Yaghjian of Columbia and Dorothy Netherland of Charleston, S.C., as well as David Boatwright of Charleston and Alexia Timberlake and Jay Owens, both of Greenville.

In addition to her 80th-birthday exhibition in February 2006, Spong had three solo exhibitions last year, including one at Hampton III Gallery in Greenville and a retrospective at the University of South Carolina’s McMaster Gallery. Spong also was in a two-person show at the Vinson Gallery in Atlanta. In February of this year, Spong was with Katie Walker, Paul Reed and Mike Williams in a group show at Columbia’s Gallery 80808/Vista Studios, organized by if ART Gallery. Next month, Spong’s work will be in a group show at Elder Art in Charlotte, N.C., and in October, she will have a solo exhibition at Francis Marion University.

David & Edmund Yaghjian: April 20- May 21, 2007

For its first exhibition at if ART Gallery in Columbia, S.C., if ART, International Fine Art Services, presents an exhibition of works on paper by father-son duo Edmund and David Yaghjian. The show will run from April 20 – May 12, 2007. The exhibition will be part of Artista Vista, April 26 & 28, and the Columbia Festival of the Arts, April 26 – May 6.

Armenia native and longtime Columbia resident Edmund Yaghjian (1905-1997), whose retrospective is at the S.C. State Museum in Columbia until September 16, will be represented by gouaches, water colors, lithographs, drawings and studies. Yaghjian was the first chairman of the University of South Carolina art department and instrumental in establishing the Columbia Museum of Art, the Guild of S.C. Artists, and the Columbia Artists’ Guild. The older Yaghjian’s works in the if ART show are from the collections of his children.

Columbia native and resident David Yaghjian (b. 1948) will show monotypes produced in March at Phil Garrett’s King Snake Press in Greenville, S.C. Yaghjian focuses not on his well-known architectural themes but on his more recent body of art with an existential bent, involving a middle-aged man and his dog, wife, snake, belly and tribulations. The younger Yaghjian returned to Columbia from Atlanta in 2000.

The gallery, if ART Gallery, opened in November 2006. While if ART has been organizing exhibitions at Vista Studios/Gallery 80808 in Columbia for two years, the Yaghjian show will be its first exhibition at if ART Gallery.

Deanna Leamon & H. Brown Thornton: March 9-20, 2007

For its March exhibition at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios in Columbia, S.C., if ART, International Fine Art Services, presents solo exhibitions by Deanna Leamon and H. Brown Thornton. Leamon will exhibit mixed media works on paper. Thornton will show mixed media paintings. Both artists are represented by Columbia’s if ART Gallery, 1223 Lincoln St., (803) 238-2351.

Leamon is a professor at the University of South Carolina art department. Her graphite-driven works on paper have received great critical acclaim. Leamon only sporadically shows in Columbia, and this show will be her first local solo exhibition in a commercial gallery. Leamon’s work was in “Thresholds: Expressions of Art & Spiritual Life.” The exhibition was curated by New York art critic Eleanor Heartney and traveled throughout the Southeast from 2004–2006. Leamon also was in “The Felt Moment,” a 2003 show of contemporary art from the Carolinas at the Columbia Museum of Art.

Aiken native and resident Brown Thornton also was in “The Felt Moment.” Thornton received his BFA from the University of South Carolina art department in 1999. From 2001–2005 he lived and worked in Chicago, where he shows with the Linda Warren Gallery. The realization that the South was a significant aspect of his work – and the fear of another cold Chicago winter – made Thornton decide to move back to Aiken, where he lives and works in a warehouse studio.

“I want my work to constantly emphasize the temporal, passing moment,” Thornton says of his abstract acrylic paintings with representative elements. “This can be something that just happened or something that happened long ago and only remains as fragments made up of memories or photographs. I think I am defined more so by a collection of constantly passing events, both present and past, than most anything else. I often place the whale skeletons on dry land, emphasizing that this land was not dry at one point and may one day be under water again.”

The impetus for Leamon’s current work is the war in Iraq, she says, “especially those aspects of that war that our government doesn’t want us to see, such as Iraqi casualties. This work continues my concern with individual human suffering as a consequence of large bureaucratic exercises of power. I continue to explore new ways to extend drawing and to make the drawing medium serve the artistic message.”

Abstract in Nature: February 9-20, 2007

For its February exhibition at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios in Columbia, S.C., if ART, International Fine Art Services, presents Abstract In Nature, a group exhibition with work by South Carolina artists Laura Spong, Mike Williams and Katie Walker as well as renowned first-generation Washington Color Field painter Paul Reed. The show consists of abstract paintings by Reed, Spong and Walker and abstract metal sculpture by Williams. The exhibition opens Friday, Feb. 9, with a reception from 5:00 –10:00 p.m. and runs through Feb. 20. Opening hours are weekdays, 11:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m., Saturdays, 11 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., and Sundays 1:00 ¬ – 5:00 p.m. Reed, Spong and Walker are represented by Columbia’s if ART Gallery, 1223 Lincoln St., (803) 238-2351, which also shows sculpture by Williams.

Washington, D.C., native Paul Reed, (b. 1919) in 1965-1966 was one of the six painters in The Washington Color Painters, the first nationally traveling exhibition of Washington Color Field paintings. The other five painters were Kenneth Noland, Morris Louis, Gene Davis, Howard Mehring and Tom Downey. Reed’s work is in dozens of museums across the country, including the Phillips Collection, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the National Museum of American Art, all in D.C., the Detroit Institute of Art, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum in Hartford, Conn., the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama. In South Carolina, his work is in the Greenville County Museum of Art and the Columbia Museum of Art, whose acquisition of two Paul Reed paintings was facilitated by if ART owner Wim Roefs. Reed’s work has been in more than 100 solo and group shows, including Modernism & Abstraction: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which traveled nationally from 2000-2002.

Columbia’s Laura Spong (b. 1926) enjoyed her most successful year in 2006, both in terms of sales and critical acclaim. Spong sold more than 30 paintings from her 80th birthday solo exhibition at Gallery 80808 in February 2006, which was accompanied by a 32-page catalogue published by if ART. Spong also had solo exhibitions last year at Carol Saunders Gallery in Columbia and Greenville’s Hampton III Gallery, as well as a retrospective at the University of South Carolina’s McMaster Gallery. She was in a two-person show at Atlanta’s Vinson Gallery and in several group exhibitions in North and South Carolina. In April, she’ll be in a group exhibition at the Greenville County Museum of Art that also will include if ART Gallery artist David Yaghjian.

Greenville’s Katie Walker (b. 1970) was in the 2005 Florence, Italy, Biennale, and recently has been in exhibitions at the Upstairs Gallery in Tryon, N.C., Sandler Hudson Gallery in Atlanta, the Spartanburg (S.C.) Museum of Art, the Carillon Building in Charlotte, N.C., the Artbomb in Greenville and Brookgreen Gardens in Pawley’s Island, S.C. She was included in New American Paintings No. 40, 2002. Walker holds a BFA in Studio Art from Furman University and an MFA from the University of Georgia.

Sumter native and Columbia resident Mike Williams (b. 1963) recently had a major solo exhibition at Columbia College in Columbia, S.C. Williams is among the state’s most-acclaimed painters and sculptors. In recent years he has had solo exhibitions at Pawleys Island Cheryl Newby Gallery, I. Pinckney Simons Gallery in Beaufort, S.C., and at Newberry College in Newberry, S.C, Francis Marion University in Florence, S.C., and the University of South Carolina Upstate in Spartanburg, S.C.

Construction Crew II: December 8-19, 2006

For its holiday exhibition at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios in Columbia, S.C., if ART, International Fine Art Services of Columbia presents Construction Crew II, a group exhibition with work by South Carolina artists Matt Overend, Virginia Scotchie, Christine Tedesco and Paul Yanko. Like the first if ART Construction Crew exhibition in December 2005, the show consists of two-dimensional and three-dimensional art that has strong constructional or architectural characteristics. The exhibition opens Friday, Dec. 8, with a reception from 5:00 –10:00 p.m. and runs through Dec. 19. Opening hours are weekdays, 11:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m., Saturdays, 11 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., and Sundays 1:00 – 5:00 p.m. Overend, Scotchie, Tedesco and Yanko are represented by if ART Gallery, 1223 Lincoln St., (803) 238-2351, where additional works of art by all four artists will be on view.

Overend will show paintings of buildings and architectural structures, a new direction in his art. Scotchie will show her well-known abstracted, ceramic sculptures and objects. Textile artist Tedesco will show colorful quilts and textile pieces of different sizes, typically with abstract, geometric patterns and compositions. Yanko offers colorful, abstract paintings often with a heavily built-up surface.

Matt Overend (b. 1950) is a native of Las Vegas who grew up in Atlanta and has lived in Smoaks, S.C., since 1981. He was with Janet Orselli in an if ART exhibition in March 2005 at Vista Studios. In the past two years, he has had solo exhibitions in Hilton Head, Camden, Charleston and Charlotte. Overend in 1973 graduated as an aerospace engineer at Georgia Tech before studying art at Santa Barbara City College in California, the University of California at Santa Barbara and Yale University.

Virginia Scotchie (b. 1955) is an internationally renowned ceramic artist who teaches at the University of South Carolina art department. Earlier this fall, she returned from Taiwan, where she did a major commission for the Yingge Ceramic Museum. In recent years she has been an artist in residence at the University of Hawaii and Taiwan’s Tainan National University for the Arts.

Christine Tedesco (b. 1959) is an architect and textile artist in Pendleton, S.C. Her work has been part of the U.S. State Department’s Art in Embassies Program, featured in Tanzania and Honduras. She has shown in the Mint Museum in Charlotte, N.C., and was included in the 2001 S.C. Triennial and the opening exhibition of New Orlean’s Ogden Museum of Southern Art in 2003.

Paul Yanko teaches at the S.C. Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities in Greenville. He holds an MFA in painting from Kent State University and a BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art. He has exhibited at the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art and the McDonough Museum of Art in Youngstown, Ohio. This will be his first exhibition in Columbia.

Carl Blair: The Verner Award Celebration Exhibition: April 29- May 27, 2005

Carl Blair, this year’s winner of South Carolina’s Elizabeth O’Neil Verner Award for Lifetime Achievement, will be exhibiting in May at Lewis & Clark Gallery in Columbia. The gallery organized the exhibition with if ART, International Fine Art Services, a new private art dealer in Columbia that also provides art consulting and curatorial services. The artist reception is May 5 from 5:00 – 8:00 p.m., the day after Blair will receive the Verner Award at the State House in Columbia.

On May 5, Blair also will give two demonstrations in the use of gouache at Lewis & Clark. The demonstrations are open to the public. The gallery is located at 1231 Lincoln St., in the heart of Columbia’s downtown Vista district. Gallery hours are 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m., Monday through Friday and 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Saturday. The exhibition also can be viewed by appointment.

Carl Blair has been on many levels a driving force in South Carolina arts since he appeared on the scene in 1957. As an artist, he was with colleagues such as William Halsey, Corrie McCallum, Merton Simpson, Arthur Rose and J. Bardin in the vanguard of modern art in South Carolina. His prominence as a painter and sculptor has increased steadily and has been marked by several museum retrospectives since 1995. In 1999, he was included in “100 Years/100 Artists: Views of the 20th Century in South Carolina Arts,” the South Carolina State Museum’s look back at the 20th century.

As an art teacher for four decades at Bob Jones University in Greenville, Blair was instrumental in making that institution a hub for fine art production in the Upstate. Blair also has taught at the Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities Summer Honors Program and at the Fine Arts Center for the Greenville County School District. In addition, he taught night and summer classes for two decades at the Greenville County Museum of Art. “His students learn a great deal more than painting from him, as do many of the rest of us,” independent curator and writer Sharon Campbell wrote in the catalogue for a 1998 Blair retrospective at BJU, from which Blair retired in 1998. “We learn to live lives of compassion, diligence, and freedom. He is invaluable to the artistic life of this region …”

As co-founder, part owner and president of one of the state’s oldest and most important galleries, Hampton III in Taylors, Blair from the early 1970s helped provide an outlet for contemporary art, a rarity then in the state and still an exception rather than the rule. Hampton III’s importance cannot be overstated. In addition to Halsey, McCallum, and Bardin, the gallery from the start provided representation for Leo Twiggs, Jeanet Dreskin, Bette Lee Coburn, Tom Flowers, John Acorn, Darell Koons, Emery Bopp, and other prominent South Carolina artists. Of this list, six are Verner Award winners.

As a fixture on and in art-related boards, commissions, and organizations, Blair also helped promote and steer the development of the arts. He served for many years on the S.C. Arts Commission board and was elected chairman twice. He also held office in the legendary Guild of South Carolina Artists, which served the state’s visual artists from 1950 through the 1980s, especially with its annual statewide exhibitions.

Blair was born in 1932 in Kansas. In 1956, he received a BFA from the University of Kansas; the next year, he earned an MFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and School of Design. He married Margaret Ruble, and the couple, also in 1957, moved to Greenville, where Blair joined the art faculty at BJU. Soon thereafter, he began teaching at the Greenville museum. In the 1960s he also taught several years at the Kansas City Art Institute’s summer school.

GRAND OPENING of if ART Gallery: November 10, 2006

On Nov. 10, 2006, if ART, International Fine Art Services, will open if ART Gallery. The gallery will be at 1223 Lincoln St., Columbia, S.C., in the Vista district, across from the Blue Marlin restaurant. The opening receptions for the gallery are Friday, Nov. 10, 5:00 – 10: p.m.; Saturday, Nov. 11, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.; and Sunday, Nov. 12, 1:00 – 5:00 p.m. For more information, contact if ART’s Wim Roefs at (803) 238-2351 or wroefs@sc.rr.com.

If ART Gallery will carry the work of South Carolina artists Leo Twiggs, Carl Blair, Tom Stanley, Virginia Scotchie, Tonya Gregg, Peter Lenzo, Jeff Donovan, David Yaghjian, Anna Redwine, John Monteith, Christine Tedesco, Brown Thornton, Paul Yanko, Laura Spong, Steven Chapp, Katie Walker, Edward Rice, Aaron Baldwin, Herb Parker, Dorothy Netherland, Eric Miller, Mary Gilkerson, Matt Overend, Kim Keats and Phil Garrett. The gallery also will carry work by Dutch artist Kees Salentijn, German artists Reiner Mahrlein, Roland Albert and Klaus Hartmann, and Washington Color Field painter Paul Reed.

Since March 2005, if ART, International Fine Art Services, has organized commercial gallery exhibitions in Columbia, mostly at Vista Studios/Gallery 80808. In addition to presenting gallery artists and special exhibitions at if ART Gallery, if ART will continue to organize exhibitions at Vista Studios/Gallery 80808. The company also provides curatorial and exhibition design services.

Most recently, in September, if ART was hired by the Technical College of the Lowcountry to install dozens of art works at the college’s new building in Bluffton, S.C. Earlier this year, if ART installed two exhibitions of work from the South Carolina state art collection at the Sumter (S.C.) Gallery of Art. The if ART production “South Carolina Birds: A Fine Art Exhibition,” curated by company owner Wim Roefs, is at the Pickens County Museum of Art & History until Nov. 11, 2006. The exhibition opened in 2004 at the Sumter Gallery of Art and traveled to the Burroughs & Chapin Museum in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and the City Gallery at Waterfront Park in Charleston, S.C. Roefs wrote the essay for the exhibition catalogue, which he also edited.

In 2005, Roefs curated exhibitions of work by Leo Twiggs and Carl Blair for the Fine Arts Center of Kershaw County in Camden, S.C. He also curated an exhibition of paintings by Marcelo Novo for HoFP Gallery in Columbia, S.C., and wrote the essay for the exhibition catalogue. Earlier this year, Roefs curated an exhibition with work by Dutch artist Kees Salentijn for the Center of the Arts in Rock Hill, S.C. In May, he curated an indoors/outdoors sculpture exhibition for the city of Dillon, S.C.

Roefs contributed an essay to the catalogue for the exhibition “A Collection for Margaret: The Personal and Private Art of Carl Blair.” The exhibition is on view at Hampton III Gallery in Greenville until Nov. 11. Roefs teaches a course in African-American art at the University of South Carolina.

Since March 2005, if ART has published eight small exhibition catalogues. The catalogues featured short essays by Roefs about Aaron Baldwin, Mike Williams, Anna Redwine, Tom Stanley, Carl Blair, Janet Orselli, Matt Overend, Laura Spong, Leo Twiggs, Jeff Donovan, John Monteith, Dorothy Netherland, Herb Parker and Phil Garrett and Mary Gilkerson and the process of making monotypes.

Leo Twiggs: Toward Another Retrospective: March 3-14, 2006

While Leo Twiggs’ retrospective exhibition is on view at the South Carolina State Museum, if ART, International Fine Art Services, will present Twiggs’ first solo gallery show in Columbia, S.C. The if ART exhibition, Leo Twiggs: Toward Another Retrospective, will take place March 3 – 14, 2006, at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios on Lady Street in Columbia’s downtown Vista district. It will present new paintings by Twiggs from the past year. The artist’s reception is March 3, 5:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. Opening hours are Saturday, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.; Sunday, 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.; weekdays, noon – 7:00 p.m.; and by appointment. For an appointment, call Wim Roefs at if ART at (803) 238-2351.

“Leo Twiggs is one of the giants of South Carolina art in the past four decades,” said Wim Roefs, owner of if ART. “He’s one of the state’s most important artists, and one of the few state artists with a truly national reputation. He’s also been one of South Carolina’s most important art educators. As a professor and art department head at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, he taught the majority of African-American art teachers working in this state. And Twiggs has been a major presence on art-related boards, committees and commissions in South Carolina, on any level.”

In 1981, Twiggs was the first to receive as an individual South Carolina’s highest art award, the Elizabeth O’Neil Verner Governor’s Award for the Arts. In 1970, he was the first African American to get an Ed.D. in art education from the University of Georgia. Twiggs is generally considered one of the most innovative batik artists in the county and the pioneer in developing batik as a modern art medium. His retrospective, Myths and Metaphors: The Art of Leo Twiggs, was organized by the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens, Ga. After a two-year tour, the exhibition has it last stop at the State Museum.

Twiggs, who retired from S.C. State in 1998, was born in 1934 and raised in rural St. Stephen, S.C. His art is about subjects, issues and people from or close to his Southern upbringing and countryside home. But through familiar specifics, Twiggs addresses broader themes, be it black culture, including the blues, the relationship between generations, religion and spirituality, or the South’s lingering Confederate mindset.

Twiggs is “an American original,” art historian Frank Martin argued in his contribution to the Myths and Metaphors exhibition catalogue. He makes “formal and aesthetic contributions unlike those of any other American painter.” Twiggs, Martin wrote, has “an uncanny ability to reconcile a multiplicity of cultural traditions with integrity, while simultaneously offering insightful commentary regarding aesthetic, ethical, and social issues that are translated, with understated power, through his unique experience.”

Twiggs began to experiment with batik in the mid-1960s. Already in 1972, the catalogue for an exhibition at Southern Illinois University said that “his name and the medium of batik seem almost synonymous.” There and at several other 1970s exhibitions, Twiggs shared the stage with a virtual who’s who of African-American art, including Jacob Lawrence, Lois Mailou Jones, Romare Bearden, Selma Burke, Richmond Barthe, John Biggers, Charles Alston and Hale Woodruff. Woodruff had been his teacher at New York University in the early 1960s. During the 1970s, Twiggs was included in books on African-American art by J. Edgar Atkinson, Samella Lewis and Elton Fax. He had solo museum exhibitions at North Carolina’s Asheville Museum, the Schenectady Museum in the state of New York, and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

“In a single work,” wrote Martin, who teaches at S.C. State, “Twiggs may present Southern regional themes, allude to a realm of intuition, magic, and traditional African religious elements, offer autobiographical information, and evoke, without effort, an aesthetic linkage to the most advanced aspects of Abstract Expressionism.”

Aaron Baldwin & Mike Williams: Up From the Mud: October 7-19, 2005

if ART, International Fine Art Services, presents Up From The Mud, an exhibition of paintings, three-dimensional wall pieces and sculptures by Aaron Baldwin and Mike Williams. The exhibition is at Gallery 80808 at Vista Studios, 808 Lady St, Columbia, SC, October 7 – 19, 2005. The artists’ reception is Friday, October 7, 5:00 ¬– 10:00 p.m. Opening hours are Saturdays, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.; Sundays, 1:00 – 5:00 p.m; and weekdays 3:30 – 7:00 p.m. or by appointment.

The artists will present a mixture of new work and older pieces not previously shown in the Columbia area. Baldwin’s work will include wooden sculptures and three-dimensional oil paintings on board with wooden relief elements. Williams will not just show the abstracted swamp and fish paintings he’s known for. Much of his contribution will consist of works on the margins of his artistic production, including metal wall assemblages, formalist metal sculptures, and even energetic, highly expressionist, painted portraits.

Both Baldwin and Williams are deeply influenced by the natural environment, the water and dirt of their childhood. Baldwin (b. 1966) was born and raised in coastal McClellanville, SC, with the ocean and marshes nearby. After some time away living in Clemson, SC., and Charlotte, NC, Baldwin in the 1990s moved back to his hometown. Williams (b. 1963) was born and raised in Sumter, SC, near the swamps and lakes of Sumter and Clarendon counties. He lives in Columbia, SC, and is still an avid outdoorsman.

Literal elements from the environment the artists hold dear are easily identifiable in their work. Baldwin, for instance, incorporates boat shapes or reduces bird forms to their abstracted essence. In Williams’s paintings and sculptures fish and fish forms play prominent roles.

Still, while their backgrounds and personal preferences inform their subject matter, both Baldwin and Williams more often lean toward sensibilities they associate with the environment they grew up and live in. The work is about how they personally relate to that environment, about the existential, even spiritual component of the physical world. Esthetically, that translates not into literal depictions but compositions with strong formal qualities, built from abstracted forms that can be traced back to nature.

“In that sense, Baldwin and Williams have a lot in common,” says Wim Roefs, if ART’s director. “They share a certain sensibility. At the same time, their work looks very different. Baldwin’s three-dimensional work, usually in wood, relates to the cool, reductive, understated stylings of Constantin Brancusi or, more recently, Martin Puryear. Williams, especially in his paintings, takes his cues more from Abstract Expressionism’s legacy, although his metal sculptures at times take austere, clean forms.”

If ART of Columbia, SC, represents artists, organizes art exhibitions, and provides curatorial services to galleries, museums, and other institutions. If ART also provides consultation services to fine art institutions, individual artists and art collectors. If ART was founded early in 2005 by Roefs, the company’s director and curator. Recent if ART exhibitions include “Janet Orselli – Matt Overend: Double O 80808,” in April, at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios, Columbia, SC, and “Carl Blair: The Verner Award Celebration Exhibition,” April-May 2005 at Lewis & Clark Gallery, Columbia, SC.

Construction Crew: December 9-21, 2005

For its holiday exhibition at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios in Columbia, S.C., if ART, International Fine Art Services of Columbia presents Construction Crew, a group exhibition with work by German artist Klaus Hartmann and South Carolina artists Kim Keats, Peter Lenzo, and Edward Rice. The show consists of two-dimensional and three-dimensional art that has strong constructional or architectural characteristics. The show opens Friday, Dec. 9, with a reception from 5:00 p.m to 10:00 p.m. and runs through Dec. 21. Opening hours are weekdays, 11:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m., Saturdays, 11 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., and Sundays 1:00 – 5:00 p.m. The exhibition is on view during the Vista Studios Holiday Open Studios, Saturday, Dec. 10, 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m., and Thursday, Dec. 15, 5:00 – 8:00 p.m.

“The work by the three-D artists in this show is all very much constructed,” said Wim Roefs, director of if ART and the show’s curator. “The artists build constructions from different materials, be they metal and bronze, tree bark and twigs, or just wood. Ed Rice’s paintings and monotypes are architectural in that they depict buildings or details of buildings.”

Hartmann (b. 1960), of Kaiserslautern, Germany, will show new sculptures of welded steel and bronze. Despite their strong constructional features, the sculptures are actually abstracted figures or body parts, including bronze body forms suspended in an open, four-legged metal armature. Hartmann is a fixture on the art scene of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. He has produced several public sculptures, including one for his state’s Department of Culture. Hartmann makes energetic, abstracted and stylized bronze and metal sculptures. He approaches his metal work as a blacksmith, not simply welding pieces of metal together but actually hammering and bending shapes and forms from the material. In the past few years, Hartmann has exhibited several times in Columbia, S.C., where his work is in several private collections.

Keats (b. 1954), of Okatie, S.C., near Beaufort, holds a BFA from Augusta State University, an MFA from Georgia Southern University, and did graduate studies in fibers at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Galtinburg, Tenn. Her work has been exhibited at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, S.C., the Museum of York County in Rock Hill, S.C., the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia, S.C., NationsBank Plaza in Columbia, S.C., the Orlando (Florida) Museum of Art, Carol Saunders Gallery in Columbia, S.C., and at scores of other commercial and institutional galleries. Keats was part the 1999 Material Objects exhibition organized by the S.C. Arts Commission. She uses natural materials such as bark, twigs, palm pods, and roots, as well as linen, bones, and turtle shells, to create architectural structures, vessels, and wall assemblages.

Lenzo (b. 1955) nowadays is mostly known for his face jugs and full-figure ceramic sculptures that incorporate anything from old pipe heads and small porcelain dolls to fragments of cups and plates. This show, however, will present work from the 1990s, when Lenzo was known for his altar-like constructions. These structures consist of wooden frames with religious statues and drawers full of personal artifacts or amorphous, ready-made metal forms, mostly bed pans. Lenzo is represented by the prestigious Ferren Gallery in Lenox, Mass., and is the owner of Southern Pottery Workcenter and Gallery in Columbia, S.C. He holds an MFA from Wayne State University, Detroit, MI. His work is in the South Carolina State Museum, the Mint Museum in Charlotte, N.C., and the Renwick Gallery at The Smithsonian Museum Washington, D.C. His solo shows include those at the Spartanburg (S.C.) Museum of Art and the European Ceramic Work Center in Den Bosch, The Netherlands.

Rice (b. 1953) is one of the Southeast’s most prominent contemporary painters. He has had solo museum exhibitions at the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Ga., the Gibbes Museum in Charleston, S.C., the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art in Augusta, Ga., the Greenville (S.C.) County Museum of Art, the Chattahoochee Valley Art Museum in La Grange, Ga., and the McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C. Rice was also represented in The Story of the South: Art and Culture, 1890 – 2003, New Orleans’ Ogden Museum of Southern Art’s inaugural exhibition. “Edward Rice: Architectural Works, 1978-1998” was published by the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art in 1998, and “Edward Rice: Recent Monotypes,” by the Morris Museum of Art in 2003. Rice is especially known for his stark, meticulous paintings of architectural structures or their details. In recent years, he has also produced a body of monotypes of architectural forms.

Anna Redwine and Tom Stanley: April 7 -18, 2006

For its April exhibition at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios, if ART, International Fine Art Services, will present two solo exhibitions. Winthrop University gallery director Tom Stanley will exhibit “The Neighborhood,” hard-edged narrative paintings completed in the past two years. University of South Carolina MFA candidate Anna Redwine’s exhibition, “Life In One Breath,” will consist of 24 white panels with quick, expressive sketches of insects, birds and other animals. The show will be Redwine’s MFA thesis exhibition.

The opening reception for the exhibition is April 7, 5:00 – 10:00 p.m. Opening hours are Saturdays, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.; Sundays, 1:00 – 5:00 p.m; and weekdays 12:00 – 7:00 p.m. or by appointment. For more information or to make an appointment, contact if ART’s Wim Roefs at (803) 238-2351 or wroefs@sc.rr.com.

Stanley (b. 1950), a Texas native, is among the Southeast’s most prominent contemporary artists and curators. The South Carolina Arts Commission recently selected a five-panel frieze by him for the state art collection. Stanley exhibits throughout the region and beyond, including Europe. He was included in the 2004 South Carolina Triennial, and his work was published twice in the prestigious publication New American Painting.

Redwine (b. 1978), a native of Louisiana, received a BA in English from the University of Mississippi, then came to the University of South Carolina’s art department to pursue graduate studies. She showed at Columbia’s Lewis & Clark Gallery during Vista Lights 2005.

With his new “The Neighborhood” series, Stanley revisits a theme he explored in the 1990s, using elements of imagined and real neighborhoods to create narrative paintings that invite the viewer to take a stroll. The series also is a continuation of Stanley’s paintings about real and mental journeys. In his 1990s series “En Route to Hamlet” he used visual clues from Highway 74 in North Carolina. In his series “Across the River” of 2003 and the “Floating” series of 2004-2005, Stanley explored in fanciful fashion the mysterious, unexplained 1920 drowning death of his grandfather in the Mississippi River at New Orleans. Several Floating paintings will be in the Vista Studios show.

Redwine engages in a balancing act between drawing and painting, as she has for several years. On panels of 2 x 4 feet with white surfaces of rabbit-skin glue and powdered marble, she draws quick, expressive and lively renderings of insects, birds and other animals. She created the works from life, watching the animals outside as she drew them in a minute or two. If the animal moved, the movements became part of the rendering; when the animal left, the drawing was done.

“In East Asian calligraphy,” Redwine says, “this approach is referred to as painting in ‘on breath’. In this body of work, I am using the verb ‘to draw’ to mean not only to place marks on a surface but to extract or distill, in this case the essence of the animal.”

Phil Garrett & Mary Gilkerson: Monotypes: September 8-19, 2006

For its September exhibition at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios, if ART, International Fine Art Services, will present a show of monotypes by Phil Garrett and Mary Gilkerson. The opening reception for the exhibition is Sept. 8, 5:00 – 10:00 p.m. Opening hours are Saturdays, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.; Sundays, 1:00 – 5:00 p.m.; and weekdays 12:00 – 7:00 p.m. or by appointment. For more information or to make an appointment, contact if ART’s Wim Roefs at (803) 238-2351 or wroefs@sc.rr.com.

Columbia native and resident Gilkerson is a prominent presence in the art scene of South Carolina’s Midlands. She is painter with a long and full exhibition history. She also teaches art at Columbia College, and is an art critic and curator. Gilkerson holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in art from the University of South Carolina in Columbia. This will be her first exhibition of monotypes, which she produced at Greenville’s King Snake Press in cooperation with Master Printer Garrett.

Garrett, a native and resident of Greenville, S.C., is both as a painter and printer among the region’s more prominent artists. He has completed extensive studies in printmaking, including at the San Francisco Art Institute and with Tamarind Master Printer Cappy Kuhn.

Since Garrett launched King Snake Press in 1998, the medium has spread like a happy virus through Upstate South Carolina and beyond. Artists as different as Edward Rice, Carl Blair and Katie Walker have made prints at Garrett’s press. In 2001, the Greenville County (S.C.) Museum of Art mounted an exhibition of monotypes produced by 25 artists with Garrett at his press.

Humans: October 6-17, 2006

For its October exhibition at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios, if ART, International Fine Art Services, will present “Humans,” an exhibition with work by Jeff Donovan, John Monteith, Dorothy Netherland and Herb Parker. The opening reception for the exhibition is Oct. 6, 5:00 – 10:00 p.m. Opening hours are Saturdays, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.; Sundays, 1:00 – 5:00 p.m.; and weekdays 12:00 – 7:00 p.m. or by appointment. For more information or to make an appointment, contact if ART’s Wim Roefs at (803) 238-2351 or wroefs@sc.rr.com.

Donovan and Monteith are both from Columbia; Netherland and Parker are from Charleston. All the art in the exhibition will have a human presence in the form of figurative elements.

“That doesn’t mean it’s a figurative show,” if ART owner Wim Roefs said. “It’s just that in different ways, the human factor shows up in this work. Monteith’s work consists of portraits but with a twist. Donovan’s pieces all have the human figure in them some way or another. Netherland paints symbolic compilations in which portrait and figures, often inspired by 1950s magazines, play an important role. And Parker’s sculptures are about humanity and typically include heads and the human body or part thereof.”

Donovan will be showing paintings and ceramic works. Monteith’s oil paintings are on thin but solid plastic sheets. Netherland’s paintings are on glass. Parker’s pieces will be mixed-media works.