LESLIE HINTON – BOB TROTMAN – DAVID YAGHJIAN
October 18 – November 9, 2013
Opening Reception: Friday, October 18, 6 – 9 pm.
For installation shots of the exhibition Click Here
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Leslie Hinton, Soul Man, 2013,
earthenware, underglazes and glazes,
9 x 4 x 2.5 in., $450
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Bob Trotman, Mrs. T, 2006, wood tempera, wax,
steel, 22 x 20 x 23 in., $9,000
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David Yaghjian, Yellow Tree, Red Neck, 2013,
monotype 10 x 10 in., $500
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In
its new, expanded space, if ART Gallery will present the exhibition Conditions of Humans: Leslie Hinton, Bob
Trotman & David Yagjian, October 18 – November 9, 2013. The opening
reception is Friday, October 18, 6 – 9 p.m. Hinton, a recent addition to the gallery, will present new figurative
ceramic sculptures; Trotman will show his quintessential figurative wooden
sculptures; and Yaghjian, new paintings and monotypes. All three artists’ work
is strongly figurative, exploring psychological, political, social and/or
existential concerns.
San
Antonio, Tex., artist Leslie Hinton (b.1983), a native of Tennessee, made her
mark in Columbia between 2006 – 2009, when she completed an MFA at the
University of South Carolina art department. Her MFA thesis exhibition was Luna Tic Tac Toe, a memorable spectacle
at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios in Columbia. She holds a BFA from the University
of Hawaii in Honolulu.
Hinton
creates outrageous and funny, intricate ceramic sculptures and drawings
featuring figures and animals, often together, in fantastical situations that
have a stream-of-consciousness quality. Since 2005, she has been in more than
two dozen exhibitions in North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida,
California, Hawaii, and Taiwan, where in the spring of 2008 she studied at
Tainan National University for the Arts.
Casar,
N.C., artist Bob Trotman (b. 1947) is among the South’s most prominent
contemporary artist. The Winston-Salem, N.C., native is no stranger to
Columbia, where he has had a solo exhibition at 701 Center for Contemporary Art
and where the Columbia Museum of Art recently acquired two of his sculptures. Among
the public collections that have his work are the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
in Richmond,
the North Carolina Museum of Art
in Raleigh,
the Weatherspoon Museum of Art in Greensboro, N.C., the Mint Museum of Art in
Charlotte, N.C., the Museum of Art of the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence and the Museum of Art and Design in
New York City.
Trotman
wooden, figurative sculptures explore the human body as a medium for thoughts
and feelings through poses, dress, gestures, facial expressions, disposition,
etc. “I am most interested in expressions of alienation,” Trotman says,
“alienation of the self from society, from the physical environment, and even
of the self from itself.”
Columbia
resident and native David Yaghjian (b. 1948) is among South Carolina’s most
prominent contemporary painters. He was selected for this year’s 701 Center for
Contemporary Art’s South Carolina Biennial. Yaghjian holds a BA from
Massachusetts’ Amherst College and studied in New York City at the Art Students
League and the School of Visual Art. Aside from several solo exhibitions, he
has been in some 45 group exhibitions, including at the Greenville County
(S.C.) Museum of Art, the South Carolina State Museum and the University of
South Carolina’s McKissick Museum in Columbia, the Florence (S.C.) Museum of
Art, the Sumter County (S.C.) Gallery of Art, Blue Spiral 1 in Asheville, N.C.,
the Spruill Center Gallery in Atlanta, Ga, Chaffee Gallery in Rutland, Vt., and
Figureworks gallery in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Going
with the flow of his imagination, emotions, free associations and hand and
brush, Yaghjian creates figures whose trials and tribulations he catches in
symbolic and metaphorical, psychologically pregnant scenes that excel in
ambiguity. Some of the paintings express joy, humor and elation, others are
contemplative, angst-ridden, dark and disturbing, and many combine opposite
emotions.
