Meet original artists at ACA art reception 9/5/2009 12:32 AM By RACHEL JOHNSON Staff writer
A whole new world of art visits Aiken during September.
The Aiken Center for the Arts will hold an opening reception Thursday for its new gallery exhibits. The opening reception is a time to meet the artists in person at the ACA.
Helene Verglas, South Carolina Cotton Trail Group Show and the Class of '69 with Kesler Woodward, Linda Prior and Esther Randall will be featured in the first-floor main galleries.
The Aiken Artists' Guild Gallery will show the paintings of Dawn Beckering.
The Brooks Gallery will feature the work of Hitchcock Healthcare students and ACA's Van-Go into Art Revisited.
Verglas, an accomplished fashion and interior designer, studied fine artist at The Silvermine School of Art and gained certification in Natural Science and Botanical Art from New York Botanical Garden. Her work has appeared in galleries throughout Connecticut, New York and New Jersey. Verglas is devoted to the techniques of the Old Masters, using a variety of time-consuming and detailed processes. Her subject matter is focused on natural science subjects including, insects, birds of prey, waterfowl, feathers and nests requiring the delicate, minuscule strokes to highlight the detail of a wing, a feather or the twig of a nest.
The South Carolina Cotton Trail Group Show includes works created by the artisans of the South Carolina Cotton Trail. It consists of nearly 35 individual juried artists from Chesterfield, Darlington, Florence, Lee and Marlboro counties. The show encompasses a variety of mediums. The Cotton Trail rambles through historic towns and byways following the thread that cotton has woven through more than two centuries.
The South Carolina Cotton Trail stretches from I-95 to I-20 and traces the influence of cotton on the lives and towns of the rural South. Composed of six towns, Clio, Bennettsville, Cheraw, Society Hill, Hartsville and Bishopville, the trail visits museums, gardens, market towns, cotton fields and homesteads.
The Class of '69 is a group exhibition with Woodward, Prior and Randall.
Woodward was born in Aiken in 1951. He and his wife have resided in Alaska since 1977. Woodward's paintings are included in all major public art collections in Alaska, as well as in museum, corporate and private collections on both coasts of the United States.
Also an art historian and curator, Woodward has published six books on Alaskan art, including the first comprehensive survey of the fine arts in Alaska, "Painting in the North," published by the Anchorage Museum and University of Washington Press in 1993. His latest volume, "A Northern Adventure: The Art of Fred Machetanz," was published in May 2004. In October 2004, Woodward received the first Alaska Governor's Art Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Woodward wants all his paintings to be about place, about his relationship, at a given moment, to that place's light, character, atmosphere and feel.
"Up close, I want every painting to be completely abstract - for the viewer to be aware only of paint, color, texture and form. In all my work, I try to have it both ways," Kesler said.
Randall moved to Aiken at the age of 3. Her work, based upon the figure, encompasses a wide variety of media and approaches and has been exhibited widely regionally and nationally. Randall's artwork exhibited in the Class of '69 exhibition consists of steel, wood, stone, marble and bronze.
Prior was born in Charlestown and raised in Aiken. Prior was the designer for the Character First banners displayed in downtown Aiken. In her artist's statement for the exhibition, she states that she sees her drawings as mandalic maps, guiding and connecting the viewer into the oneness with the hypnotic beauty of natural form.
Want to Go?
What? Opening Artist Reception
When? Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m.
Where? Aiken Center for the Arts
Cost: Free
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