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May Issue 2006
Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art in Charleston, SC, Offers Exhibition Focused on Collage
The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at
the College of Charleston's School of the Arts presents Penumbra:
Points and Boundaries in Recent Collage, featuring works by
Aldwyth, Betsy Chaffin, Erica Harris, and Johnnie Tucker, who
explore the literary and associative possibilities of found materials,
as well as films by Erica Harris and Shannon Holman, on view in
the Halsey Gallery from May 12 through June 10, 2006. This exhibition
was curated by Mark Sloan, Director of the Halsey Institute of
Contemporary Art.
This group exhibition features the recent work of four collage
artists and a collage poet/filmmaker. Collage artists utilize
existing images and combine them in ways that often surprise and
illuminate. Beginning with Dada and Surrealist artists of the
1920's, collage art became a provocative form of artmaking, with
heroes such as Kurt Schwitters, Hanna Hoch, John Heartfield in
its pantheon. In the 1950's and 60's, San Francisco collage artist
Jess reinvigorated the genre by combining the sensibilities of
jazz music and beat poetry.
Penumbra is defined as the lighter part of a shadow that is formed
by diffused light in an area around the edges of an object.
The artists included in Penumbra could
be said to be descendants of this noble tradition, exploring the
literary and associational possibilities of found materials. Brooklyn-based
Erica Harris combines images she finds in her many exotic travels
(Southeast Asia, Central America, etc.) along with found photos
and other ephemera. Charleston artist Johnny Tucker primarily
works with images found in women's magazines to create anatomical
impossibilities and quizzical realities.
Betsy Chaffin, of Spring Island, SC, explores the realms of faith,
nature, and the history of art in her layered collage works.
Similarly, Hilton Head, SC, artist Aldwyth uses the history of
art and ideas as a leaping off point for complex, epic-scaled
works that resemble medieval manuscript pages.
Poet/filmmaker Shannon Holman has made two collage films that
will be screened continuously throughout the exhibition, along
with a collage film by Erica Harris. Holman, also from Brooklyn,
has combined personal narrative and found children's books to
produce hypnotic vignettes.
The Halsey Institute is pleased to announce that Penumbra artist Aldwyth is the 2006 recipient of the Pati Crosby Croffead Fund for the Arts of the Community Foundation Serving Coastal SC. Funding for the Penumbra exhibition has been provided, in part, by a grant from the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation.
For more information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings, contact the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at 843/953-5680 or at (www.halsey.cofc.edu).
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