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February Issue 2004
I. Pinckney Simons
Galleries in Columbia, and Beaufort, SC, Features Works of Tom
Ogburn
The I. Pinckney Simons Galleries in Columbia, and Beaufort, SC,
features the works of Tom Ogburn, of Charleston, SC, during the
month of Feb., 2004.
With evocative titles such as Fireflies in the Dreaming, Slickrock Buzz, Beside the Glowing Bars, and Dot the Night Sky, Tom Ogburn ignites the imagination and creates visions out of his abstract or non representational pieces. Ogburn is a painter who works in acrylic on wood panel, layering his brushwork with multiple glazes that result in surface and textural nuances for which he is known. "I strive for a richness of layers, not only in the application of paint, but at times adding the additional dimension of collage and photography. I have begun to think in terms of photographic references as invocational pieces, while the non-objective works are purely from with-in," says Ogburn.
Majoring in art studio
and anthropology at the University of South Carolina-Coastal,
Ogburn studied printmaking and ceramics and then continued his
art education at USC-Columbia from whence he graduated. In Columbia,
Ogburn was under the tutelage of Professor Harry Hansen who taught
him the revitalization of the medium of encaustic on wood panel,
an ancient Egyptian and Greek process of painting with wax. After
graduation, Ogburn traveled around Canada and the United States
for two years, spending most of his time in Colorado, Utah, and
Oregon. During his travels, he painted abstracts as well as landscapes,
developing an interest in natural amorphic forms. He returned
to Columbia, SC, to work as an artist and illustrator while studying
graphic design under Lanny Webb at USC.
Returning to the West Coast, Ogburn became a freelance graphic
designer in Seattle before founding Ogburn-Nash Associates, a
graphic design studio in Seattle which serviced accounts in the
computer, theater, music, tourism, and museum industries. Additionally
while in Seattle, Ogburn apprenticed with Jay Haavik, a Northwest
Coast artist. During his apprenticeship, he studied the traditional
forms of totem poles, masks, and bentwood boxes, which eventually
spawned a series of ceramic and wood constructions by Ogburn during
the late eighties and early nineties.
Since the mid 1990's, Ogburn has returned to the East Coast and to his original love of painting, working in what he terms a "classical abstract expressionist" manner. Ogburn explains, "I was in college during the mid to late 1970's when abstract art ruled the roost. In the midst of that hegemony, anything went. I want to dive back into the slipstream of the classic ab-ex painters and resurrect the genuine spirit that once glowed from within their paintings."
In his most recent works on view at the I. Pinckney Simons Galleries, Ogburn combines his love of abstraction with the human form and his old-world glazing technique. The ideas behind the new paintings are extrapolated from his interest in mythology and from archetypal forms in the human figure. "I will always paint non-objectively, as it is the way to knowing yourself and the world around you as a painterbut these newer works will be the first time I have combined all the meaningful interests of my life into one series of works."
For more information check our SC Commercial Gallery listings, call the Columbia gallery at 803/771-8815, the Beaufort gallery at 843/379-4774 or e-mail to (simonsgallery@aol.com).
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