IMAGES & VIDEO OF THE EXPANDED if ART Gallery

For more images of the expanded if ART Gallery, CLICK HERE.

To see the WACH FOX Thursday, Aug., 39, 2013, report on the expanded gallery, CLICK HERE.

if ART Gallery Expansion Celebration, August 24 – 25, 2013

if ART Gallery Is Expanding!

Into the former Lewis + Clark space  

next door to the gallery's current location

Please join us for the

Opening Weekend Celebration: 

Saturday, August 24, 11 am - 7 pm

Sunday, August 25, 1 - 5 pm  

  

Drinks, Snacks & Lots of New Space and Walls

with Tons of Art  

            The if ART Gallery expansion doubles the gallery's exhibition space to about 2,300 square feet. The extra space became available after Vista pioneer Clark Ellefson of Lewis + Clark completed the move of his workshop from Lincoln St. to his new location on Huger St., behind the One Eared Cow building.

            The gallery will use the extra space not just to show more work from the gallery's inventory but also to mount temporary solo and group exhibitions. The enlarged space also will be available for rentals for weddings, receptions and other events. 

            Since the gallery's opening in November 2006, if ART Gallery has organized close to 70 exhibitions either at the gallery or at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios. In addition, the gallery has organized exhibitions of gallery artists for the Fine Art Center of Kershaw County in Camden, S.C., the City Gallery at Waterfront Park in Charleston, S.C., the Westabou Festival in Augusta, Ga., and other venues. If ART Gallery has published about two dozen exhibition catalogues and other extensive print pieces about gallery artists, more than all other galleries in South Carolina combined in the past seven years. 

For more images of the expanded gallery space CLICK HERE

KLAUS HARTMANN & REINER MAHRLEIN: Kaiserslautern Calling, April 18 – May 11, 2014

Continuing the exchange of artists between Columbia and its German sister city Kaiserslautern, if ART Gallery presents an exhibition by Kaiserslautern artists Klaus Hartmann and Reiner Mährlein, who both have been represented by the gallery since it opened in 2006. The Kaiserslautern artists also will be in town for 16 days in April to create a public sculpture for Columbia’s downtown Vista district. The sculpture, a project of the Congaree Vista Guild, will be placed along Lady Street at Lincoln Street and unveiled during Artista Vista on Thursday, April 24.

            The exhibition of Hartmann’s and Mahrlein’s work at if ART will include a bronze cast of the model for the Lady & Lincoln sculpture as well as other sculptures by both artists and steel-and-granite embossings by Mährlein.

            Klaus Hartmann (b. 1960) for many years has been a prominent fixture on the art scene of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Hartmann has been, worked and exhibited in Columbia many times since 2001, the last time in 2012 as one of the creators of the a joint mural of Kaiserslautern and Columbia artists. He teaches at the Fachhochschule Kaiserslautern (the Kaiserslautern College of Applied Sciences) and has taught at the University of Kaiserlautern. Hartmann exhibits widely throughout Germany and has produced several public sculptures, for instance for the city of Kaiserslautern and the Rhineland-Palatinate Department of Culture.

Mährlein , too, came to Columbia first in 2001, and has worked and exhibited here several times since. Mährlein is a widely acclaimed artist throughout Germany and has completed several large public sculptures. He studied art at the Nuremberg Academy of Fine Arts and at the Ecole Nationale Superieur de Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. He has been in solo and group exhibitions and has participated in exchanges throughout Germany and the rest of Europe as well as Argentina. His work is in several public collections in France and Germany, including that of his hometown’s main museum of fine art, the Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern.

COLUMBIA/KAISERSLAUTERN MURAL PROJECT, PART II (& IN TWO PARTS) On View During Artista Vista 2013, April 25 – 27, at Lewis & Clark

Roland Albert, Nicole Gimber, Angie Horlemann, 
Edelgard Lösch, Reiner Mährlein, Annerose Nickel, 
Veronica Olma, Shakty Paqué, Silvia Rudolf and Angelica Steinmacher, 
 Dickicht und Unterholz, 2013, mixed media on canvas, 90 x 294 in.

Stephen Chesley, Jeff Donovan, Mary Gilkerson, 
Tonya Gregg, Klaus Hartmann, Peter Lenzo, 
Silvia Rudolf, Laura Spong, Mike Williams and David Yaghjian, 
Columbia/Kaiserslautern Goat Rodeo, 2012, 
mixed media on canvas, 90 x 288 in. 
Photo: Forrest Clonts Studios, Columbia, S.C.

The Congaree Vista Guild and Artista Vista organization contributed to the exhibition of the two murals during Artista Vista 2013.

PART II of the COLUMBIA/KAISERSLAUTERN INTERNATIONAL (MURAL) PROJECT will take place during Artista Vista, April 25 – 27, 2013, the annual gallery crawl in Columbia's Vista district, at Lewis & Clark, 1221 Lincoln St., next to if ART Gallery.

Part II of the project consist of a new mural created earlier this year by eight artists from the Kunstlerwerkgemeinschaft Kaiserslautern. Kaiserslautern is Columbia's German sister city. Part I is a mural created in September–October 2012 in Columbia by eight Columbia artists and two from Kaiserslautern. 

The project is part of an exchange between Columbia and Kaiserslautern artists that has been going on for more than a decade. Through the exchange several artist from Columbia have visited, worked and exhibited in Kaiserslautern, and several from Kaiserslautern have done the same thing in Columbia.

The initiative for the mural project came from if ART Gallery as part of the September – October 2012 visit of two Kaiserslautern artists, Klaus Hartmann and Silvia Rudolf, who both are represented by if ART. The first mural was created late September – early October at Vista Studios in Columbia by Hartmann, Rudolf and Columbia artists  Stephen Chesley, Jeff Donovan, Mary Gilkerson, Tonya Gregg, Peter Lenzo, Laura Spong, Mike Williams and David Yaghjian. The mural is called Columbia/Kaiserslautern Goat Rodeo and measures 66 x 288 inches. The 10 artists worked on the mural for about a week, sometimes by themselves, more often in groups, creating the work as they went along, without much planning, playing off each other's work until they arrived at a result that everyone was satisfied with.

The first mural was the center piece of the if ART Gallery exhibition Columbia/Kaiserslautern: The International (Mural) Project at Columbia's Gallery 80808/Vista Studios in October 2012. The rest of the exhibition consisted of work by six Kaiserslautern artists and 11 from South Carolina, most of whom were from Columbia, most of whom have been involved in the exchange and all of whom are represented by if ART Gallery. Of the Columbia contributors, all but Lenzo and Gilkerson have been to Kaiserslautern.

After the exhibition, if ART shipped the mural to Kaiserslautern; the mural consists of several smaller canvas pieces that ship easily. The idea was that the artists from the Kunstlerwerkgemeinschaft Kaiserslautern artists group would first exhibit the Columbia mural and then work on it again in their city. That is, they could paint on top of it, they could add new pieces of canvas to it and paint on those additions or do anything else they wanted to do with it, then exhibit the new version of the work. After having exhibited the new version in Kaiserslautern, the German artists were to ship the "revised" mural back to Columbia, where we then would show the new version. 

As it turned out, the Kaiserslautern artists couldn't bring themselves to painting on top of the existing mural. Instead they decided to create a second mural in response to the first one -- a second mural of about the same size as the first one. They did and then shipped both murals to Columbia. The second mural was created by Roland Albert, Nicole Gimber, Angie Horlemann, Edelgard Lösch, Reiner Mahrlein, Annerose Nickel, Veronica Olma, Silvia Rudolf and Angelica Steinmacher. Albert and Mahrlein also are represented by if ART Gallery. The second mural is called Dickicht und Unterholz, which translates to "Thicket and Undergrowth."

Meanwhile, reports coming out of Kaiserslautern about the conceptual basis for the second mural remain vague. Asked in which way the Kaiserslautern artists saw their mural as a response to the one created in Columbia, Silvia Rudolf responded: "O, how difficult. There were so many different ideas on how to respond to the first mural that I hardly can recall them. First we wanted to add "works/painting" or whatever to the first mural, but in the end decided not to cover it. Then we thought about maybe putting individuel responses to the first mural on the floor in front of it or to hang them. But it seemed more in the spirit of the first one to intertwine the works of the german artists rather than have them create individual responses, and so we thought of "dark/bright" as a first layer for the second painting as a kind of opposite image to the Columbia mural, and maybe more like a positive/negative mirror. I don't know what else to tell you. As I said: there were sooooooo many ideas, and so
"Unterholz und Dickicht" it is!"

The Kaiserslautern artists creating their mural jointly is interesting given the process through which the Columbia mural was created. That process was similar, except for the absence of any planning meetings. That absense was met with considerable disbelief by the two German artists involved in Columbia, Rudolf and Hartmann. "What we need is a meeting," became Hartmann's mantra for days after the canvas for the Columbia mural was mounted and the local artists simply had begun to paint. To which the Columbia artists' basic response was: "Why?" To figure out what to do, Hartmann suggested. But we're already doing it, the locals' response was as they added more paint. 

Hartmann, a sculptor used to creating studies for his work and planning its execution, had trouble wrapping his head around the spontaneous, decide-as-we-go approach. Painter Rudolf, who arrived a few days after the work had started, did, too, even though her work relies heavily on the direct, felt-moment approach to creating. No meeting? Everyone just painting, even on top of each other's work? Yes, m'am.

Both Hartmann and Rudolf worried about hurt feelings when one artist would paint on top of another's contributions. The locals thought that was funny. Pointing at a post stamp Stephen Chesley drew on the canvas, one of the other Columbia artists grinned. "If Stephen thinks that's going to survive..." 

Laughter all around, except with the increasingly bewildered Hartmann. 

"What we need is a meeting." 

As it turned out, Chesley's stamp survived nicely, albeit with modification by some of the other artists.

The disconnect was cultural exchange in action. While the German artists couldn't imagine there not being a meeting, none of the Columbia artists had given that much thought, if any. The German artists were worried about hurting others' feelings by modifying their contributions and even painting on top of each others' work. The locals were pretty cavalier about it. The German artists had thought that each contributing artists in Columbia would get their own section of the mural to work on, trying to make each contribution work with those around it. That was never the plan on the Columbia end.

The approach to the Kaiserslautern mural did involve meetings, evidently. But then the painting started, the artists "intertwining" their contributions, presumably even painting on top of each others' work.

To see images of the Columbia mural being created in September–October 2012,
CLICK HERE.

Here are images of the Kaiserslautern mural in progress.

First Stage Kaiserslautern Mural

Second stage of the Kaiserslautern mural with musician

Michael Geib, a member of the Kunstlerwerkgemeinschaft

Kaiserslautern.

Third Stage of Kaiserslautern Mural.

Reiner Mahrlein and Veronica Olma work on a later 

stage of the Kaiserslautern mural.

ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY: an if ART exhibition at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios

To see work from artists in Zoological Society click on their names: 
Roland Albert, Carl Blair, Steven Chapp, Phil Garrett, Tonya Gregg, Diane Kilgore Condon, Peter Lenzo, Philip Morsberger, Marcelo Novo, Anna Redwine, Kees Salentijn, Leo Twiggs and David Yaghjian.

For a PREVIEW of the exhibition  CLICK HERE

For installation shots of the exhibition CLICK HERE

LAURA SPONG & EILEEN BLYTH The Big Paint Installation Images

LAURA SPONG & KATIE WALKER EXHIBITIONS @ Gallery 80808/Vista Studios

SATURDAY, FEB. 2, 2:00 pm:

KATIE WALKER 
GALLERY TALK

followed from 3:00 – 5:00 by the

THE FAIR-WEATHER FRIENDS SECOND-CHANCE RECEPTION

for

the SPONG/WALKER
Exhibitions





if ART Gallery Presents
@ Gallery 80808/Vista Studios

LAURA SPONG
Swinging On A High Note
&
KATIE WALKER
Words I Like

Jan. 25 – Feb. 5, 2013

Opening Reception: Fri., Jan. 25, 6 – 9 pm

Gallery Talk Katie Walker: Sat. Feb. 2, 2013


For a PREVIEW of Laura Spong, Swinging On A High Note, CLICK HERE.
For a PREVIEW of Katie Walker, Words I Like, CLICK HERE.
To SEE IMAGES of Katie Walker installing more than 300 pieces of her Journal Entries series in a grid on one wall, CLICK HERE. 
For installation images CLICK HERE.

Pick up a free copy of the trifold below about Katie Walker and her exhibition.

ESSAY Mary Gilkerson – From The Edge Of The Highway: 300 Daily Paintings

MARY GILKERSON DEVELOPS A HABIT

By Wim Roefs

         “Our culture tends to make us feel divorced from the natural world,” Mary Gilkerson says on her website. “I want my artwork to give the viewer a chance to re-engage with that world, to experience and recover a sense of place.” In part to intensify that engagement, her viewers’ and her own, and in part as a marketing device, Gilkerson in 2012 decided to paint a small painting every day for three months. The 90 x 90 Daily Painting Project was born.

         Every day, the Columbia, S.C., artist posted an image on her blog and sent it into the world through email blasts and social media to engage her audience in preparation for 701 Center for Contemporary Art’s Columbia Open Studios 2012, which took place in April. People could buy a painting instantly or stop by her studio during Open Studios to see the work in person and buy it.

         Gilkerson’s new practice was facilitated by her daily trek to the Lower Richland area to take care of and ride her horse. Driving in the countryside with a new painting in mind made her look at the landscape near roads and highways around Columbia more deliberately. “The project enriched my studio practice in both expected and unexpected ways,” she says. “Working from observation every day really deepened my connection with the places I worked.”

         While she continued to create larger paintings and monotypes after the 90 days were over, Gilkerson missed the connection with the land and the one-painting-a-day routine. For Open Studios 2013, she upped the ante with 12 Squared: 144 Daily Paintings, as before working on site and through photos and sketches. “The edge of a highway is a strange intersection of nature and culture with a wealth of potential subjects,” she says. “We all move so fast that we don’t see the world in the same detail that people did before modern transportation came along. I hope that the paintings will encourage people to pay more attention to the world around them, to notice the small and subtle as well as the large and grand.”

         Gilkerson’s daily paintings, which she continued after 12 Squared, are the apotheosis of a process that began when in 2004 she started making monotypes regularly with Greenville, S.C., master printer Phil Garrett. Garrett had introduced her to monotypes in the 1990s during workshops for Gilkerson’s students at her hometown’s Columbia College. She enjoyed the process and in 2003 “started using thinner paints in my paintings, scratching and wiping out areas as well as making direct painterly marks. That’s when I began thinking about making monotypes on a more regular basis.”

         Gilkerson has created some 100 monotypes with Garrett, and making monotypes affected her paintings, which became looser, more direct and more decisive. Making monotypes made Gilkerson, it seems, a more confident and self-assured painter, which facilitates her daily habit.

                                    – Wim Roefs is the owner of if ART Gallery.

         

PREVIEW Conditions of Humans: Hinton, Trotman & Yaghjian

Bob Trotman, Large Person of Interest, 2007, 
wood, tempera, wax, steel, 33 x 36 x 16, $14,000

Bob Trotman, Person of Interest, 2006, 
wood, tempera, wax, steel, 
25 x 25 x 14 in., $12,500

Bob Trotman, Mrs. T, 2006, wood tempera, wax, 
steel, 22 x 20 x 23 in., $9,000

David Yaghjian, Scene XLII Sleeper, 2013,
oil on canvas, 18 x 18 in.,
$1,600/SOLD

David Yaghjian, Scene XLVII Dialogue, 2013,
oil on canvas panel, 12 x 12 in., $1,000

David Yaghjian, Afloat,  2013, monotype, 

10 x 8 in., $450

David Yaghjian, Red Door, 2013, monotype, 

12 x 10 in., $575

David Yaghjian, Yellow Tree, Red Neck, 2013,  
monotype  10 x 10 in., $500

David Yaghjian, Leaving The Stage, 2013, oil on panel, 7 x 5 in., $360

David Yaghjian, Scene XLIV Highway, 2013,
Oil on canvas, 20 x 20 in., $1,760

David Yaghjian, Scene XLV Exit Stage Right,
2013, oil on canvas, 24 x 24 in., $2,500

David Yaghjian, Scene XLVI Lawnchair Angel, 2013,
 oil on canvas panel, 12 x 12 in., $1,000

David Yaghjian, Scene XLVIII Intermission,
 2013, oil on canvas panel, 8 x 10 in., $640

David Yaghjian, Scene XLVIX Clearing the Stage, 2013
oil on canvas panel, 9 x 12 in., $720

David Yaghjian, Shiny Things, 2013,
oil on canvas panel, 7 x 5 in., $360

David Yaghjian, Table, 2013, oil on canvas
panel, 8 x 10 in., $640 SOLD

Leslie Hinton, Play Boy Bunny, 2013, 

earthenware, underglazes, glazes, acrylic 
and prismacolor, 13 x 5 x 3.5 in., $600
SOLD

Leslie Hinton, Soul Man, 2013, 
earthenware, underglazes and glazes,
9 x 4 x 2.5 in., $450

Leslie Hinton, Rock'n The Hard Place, 
2013, earthenware, underglazes and 
glazes, 11 1/2 x 5 1/2 x 4 in., $450/SOLD

Leslie Hinton, Jurassic Head Dress, 2013
earthenware, underglazes and glazes,
12 1/2 x 6 1/2 x 5 in., $600

Leslie Hinton, Four Legs, One Thought, 2013,

Earthenware, underglazes and glazes 

$600/SOLD

Leslie Hinton, Miss Plumbago, 2013, 
earthenware, underglazes, glazes, acrylic 
and prismacolor, 16 x 5 x 3.5 in., $600

Leslie Hinton, Didn't Quite Work Otherwise, 

2013, earthenware, underglazes, glazes, acrylic, 

prismacolor and wire, 9 x 10.5 x 4 in., $350