| For more information about this article or gallery, please call the gallery phone number listed in the last line of the article, "For more info..." |
April Issue 2007
Coastal Discovery Museum on Hilton Head Island, SC, Features Works by Brucie Holler, Louann LaRoche, Lynn Parrott and Martha Worthy
With over 100 years of accumulative living,
working and painting in the Lowcountry, artists Brucie Holler,
Louann LaRoche, Lynn Parrott and Martha Worthy, will share their
Sense of History through their work starting Apr. 19 and
continuing through July 18, 2007, in the Jarvis Room Gallery,
at the Coastal Discovery Museum on Hilton Head Island, SC.
Each artist will bring to this exhibit artwork whose history is
inspired visually, musically, by written word, time and experiences
while living on Hilton Head and the surrounding Lowcountry. The
artwork will include paintings, drawings, collage and printmaking
illuminated by the history of their inspirations. Books, sketch
books and "how they got there" will be shared in the
exhibit as well.
Brucie Holler
Brucie Holler, a South Carolina native, received
a BFA in painting from Florida State University and did graduate
work at the Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore. She
then moved to Telluride, CO, and worked for seven years teaching
and serving as Director of Exhibitions for the Ah Haa School for
the Arts, a non-profit art school.
Holler has studied with a variety of internationally known painters
including Richard Smith, Mario Martinez, and Truman Lowe among
others and has shown her work in galleries in Florida, South Carolina
and Colorado. She moved back to South Carolina in 1997 where she
maintains a studio.
Holler offered the following about her work, "As a painter, I am interested in exploring the idea of beauty and my response to daily life through nature, symbolism and an investigation of the interior landscape. Whether I am working in abstraction or representation, I am interested in creating spaces and moments of contemplation that are inspired by personal experience.
Louanne LaRoche is a colorist at heart. Her vibrant paintings depict variety through subject and size. Friends have said that her paintings are an "eruption of her wonderful spirit that simply spills out onto the canvas."
LaRoche has brought her own distinctive vision of the Lowcountry by combining the freedom of expression with the strength of representation. Her paintings reflect a significant sense of community, and her response to these connections as they are being lost, displaced or diminished.
In addition, LaRoche's interests focus on collecting
American folk art, particularly Southern folk art and the paintings
of Sam Doyle, Jimmy Lee Sudduth and Z.B. Armstrong. Her efforts
as collector and curator of the work of Sam Doyle and other Southern
folk artists have led to Louanne LaRoche being recognized internationally
as an authority on Southern Folk art.
LaRoche was the former owner of The Red Piano Gallery on Hilton
Head Island (1980 - 1995). Here she exhibited and enjoyed the
friendship of many of America's illustrator greats. These included
Coby Whitmore, Joe Bowler, Joe DeMers, Benard D'Andrea, Ralph
Ballantine, Ben Stahl and Murry Tinkelman among others.
Lynn Parrott
Lynn Parrott is a South Carolina native and a long-time Hilton Head Island resident, She works in oil, watercolor, oil pastel, and printmaking. Currently, her paintings follow her love of the landscape, the South Carolina Low Country and the Mountains of Western North Carolina.
Parrott finished Queens University with a BA in art. Post graduate studies followed at Clemson University. She has also studied for four years at the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture in Dallas, TX. Parrott has studied with Charles Reid, Sheila Parsons, Frank Webb, Morgan Samuels Price, Molly Favour, Antis Lundy, Carol Anthony, Michael Crespo, Michael Karas and Pinkney Herbert. She has had studios in Greenville, Nashville, Dallas and Hilton Head Island.
Parrott is a member of the Hilton Head Art League, "Member in Excellence" of the SC Watercolor Society, The Bluffton Society of Artists, Beaufort Art Assn. and the Low Country Artists.
Martha Worthy attended the College of William and Mary and received a BFA from the University of Georgia. She also studied at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts and the Penland School of Crafts. Worthy is also a member of the Art League of Hilton Head.
Worthy offered the following statement: "Having lived and worked on Hilton Head since 1981 and surrounded by so much natural beauty, I feel a strong connection to the daily rhythms of the natural world. For me, painting ideas germinate and evolve in an intuitive process - usually beginning with a random spark of interest - maybe a certain color combination, a particular artist's work, or a piece of shell found on the beach. Once curiosity takes hold, I will add more layers of images - gleaned from different cultures or influenced by recent travels, like the ornately carved architectural masterpieces of Morocco or the incredible red rock colors and formations of the American Southwest."
"The search for creativity is an active pursuit," adds Worthy. "Working in my studio on a daily basis, one painting usually leads to another - I don't wait around for inspiration to find me. Each painting reflects an ongoing journey of discovery that includes many surprises along the way - it's a little like getting lost in the woods and following the breadcrumbs home."
The artists will be in the Jarvis Room Gallery for "Gallery Talks" and Demonstrations on May 2, 9, 16 and 23, 2007, all at 11am.
The exhibit will be part of BRAVO - Celebrate the Arts! An Arts and Cultural Festival held in May every year in partnership with the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce.
For further information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Museum at 843/689-6767 or visit (www.coastaldiscovery.org).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing
Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc.
Copyright© 2007 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston
Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts
from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts
Online, Copyright© 2007 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved
by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use
without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina
Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.