Below find information about some of this season's exhibitions.  Please check the Arts Calendar for more information about First Tuesday concerts as well as the Art Gallery Series schedule.

Bobbi Adams
215 S. Heyward Street
Bishopville, SC 29010
803-484-5874

A Brush with Nature & Watercolor Landscapes
by R. Thomas Wimberly 

Tom Wimberly is a masterful artist, avid outdoorsman, native American artifact collector, nature enthusiast, devoted husband, doting father, and loving friend. Having recently returned to his birthplace, Marlboro County, Tom and his wife Deborah now reside in a beautiful country home situated between Bennettsville and Blenheim, SC. Since relocating from Gainesville, Florida, where he garnered much critical acclaim for both art and concept design, Tom has been reconnecting with family and friends, exploring the countryside near his home, and capturing the essence of the rural landscape in paintings. The pieces displayed in the current exhibit reflect Tom’s life and travels throughout the Southeast and contain scenes from Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina. Please enjoy your tour of A Brush with Nature & Watercolor Landscapes, and observe the beauty, serenity, and variety of scenes through the eyes and talents of Tom Wimberly.

Wimberly Studios
1256 Blake Lane
Bennettsville, SC 29512
Phone: 843-528-9172
Fax: 843-528-9170
Email: Wimberly28@hotmail.com

New Work
Paintings by Harriet Goode and Genie Wilder

Harriet Marshall Goode is a full time artist, instructor, juror, speaker and art consultant living in Rock Hill, SC where she operates Gallery 5, A Contemporary Artspace. She studied at Converse College, William Halsey School, Silvermine School of Art, and Winthrop University.  In addition to memberships in regional and national watercolor societies, Harriet is a founding member of the Piedmont Artists and Open Studio; a board member of the Museum of York County; a past president of the SC Watercolor Soc.; and on the advisory board of Winthrop University's School of Visual and Performing Arts.

  "I have focused on still life painting for about three years. The subject matter with imagery that is meaningful to me seems limitless. I bring vibrancy to these paintings through the use of light, shadow and color, obtained mainly from contrasting cool with warm colors and dull with bright. If all the hues are vivid there is no brilliancy. I exaggerate these contrasts hoping to take the viewer beyond the actual subject matter to involve all the senses.
  "I do not intend to convey social or political statements, display shock content or to bare my soul. If there is a message in my work, it is simply this.
  "There is beauty all around us if we’ll take the time to see it in the proper light."

Genie Marshall Wilder is a signature member of the National Watercolor Society, the Midwest Watercolor Society, the Georgia Watercolor Society, and a member in Excellence in the South Carolina Watercolor Society.  Residing in Clinton, SC, she has served two terms on the board of directors of the South Carolina Arts Commission and two terms on the board of directors of the Laurens County Arts Council.  She has exhibited in South Carolina, New York, and Georgia and her work has been included in numerous bank and corporate collections in the Carolinas.  Genie was also featured on the SCETV production “Art in the South.”

  "My objective is to make a vibrant painting using ordinary subject matter, focusing on abstract patterns formed by light and shadow."

Alex Palkovich began drawing and sculpting as a child in the Carpathian Mountains of the Soviet Union. An advanced degree in mechanical engineering has given him the opportunity to work in Haifa, Mexico City and Oxford before coming to Florence with General Electric as their Global Magnet Operations Manager.  He has remained actively involved in the arts throughout his travels, exhibiting in Russia, Israel, Belgium, England, Mexico and the United States.

In addition to his representational sculptures of human and animal figures, Palkovich has been drawn in recent years to furniture design.  He has enjoyed the challenge of taking a motif and adapting the appropriate qualities of disparate materials to create functional and surprisingly comfortable chairs.

A native of Sumter and a B.F.A. graduate of the University of South Carolina, Mike Williams is a professional artist who maintains his studio at 808 Lady Street in the heart of Columbia's artistic Congaree Vista district.

Williams' sculptures and paintings  have been shown in individual and group exhibitions from South Carolina to Illinois.  His modern, semi-abstract and fiercely expressionistic style has made Williams one of the state's most successful young artists.  His work is in the Columbia Museum of Art as well as in private and corporate collections, and pieces have been commissioned for public spaces in Columbia and Sumter.

His modern, semi-abstract and fiercely expressionistic style has made Williams one of the state's most successful young artists.  His childhood love of hunting and fishing in the woodlands and cypress swamps surrounding Sumter provides the traditional reality from which much of his artwork is extrapolated. "When I am out there and squint my eyes, that's really what I see."

"The thing that keeps me interested is how to take something, like a blank canvas or a few pieces of metal, and create something.  It's a mental activity that's more fulfilling than anything that I have ever done." 

American – born in Wurtzburg, Germany

Education –  Bachelor of Arts, Coastal Carolina College
  Exhibited in South Carolina and Georgia 
Operates the Lynne Burgess Studio, Columbia, SC

  "I am moved by the shape and the concept of the cross. I am drawn to its form and proportions. For me, the cross carries a strong emotional charge of significant order.
  "Despite its obvious signatory capacities, I believe the cross can function as a self-evident hieroglyph. I have attempted to free the cross from its traditional position as a loaded iconographical symbol and have it function not so much as a religious representation, but rather as a spiritual one.
  "My intent is to stimulate the image of the cross, making it possible for abstraction and representation to coexist within each individual work."
 

Education –  Bachelor of Arts, Anthropology, University of Massachusetts
  Bachelor of Arts, Studio Art, Furman University
  Master of Fine Arts, Ceramics, Clemson University

Associate Professor Coastal Carolina University
Exhibited in South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Illinois, Wisconsin, Tennessee, and Connecticut.

  "The pursuit of a personal iconography of the spiritual journey forms the foundation of my sculptural work. These images center around specific themes and symbols that incorporate both figurative and architectural elements as well as allusions to the imagery of flight as metaphorical expressions of a spiritual longing to know God. They are a reflective response to my memories of a reoccurring childhood dream experience that linked the symbol of ascension, the “rupture of flight”, with the desire for transcendence and freedom. Through these forms I have sought to contrast a sensation of imprisonment and the unnaturalness of a purely earth-bound existence with the struggle for freedom that culminates in spiritual resolution and psychic re-integration. Consequently, my imagery often utilizes bird imagery, figurative elements with chrysalis-like allusions, or open-walled birdhouses, all depicted within illusionistic spaces. All of these elements function as witnesses with me of the wonder of the unpredictable metamorphosis capable of being unleashed at the moment of a deeply realized act of decision. Choice is a divine gift extended to us on the threshold of every personal act that carries with its heart the key to demolish strongholds and set free the captive within.
  "Alongside this sculptural work I have also spent several years exploring the functional teapot because this object naturally offers a wealth of opportunity to explore form and expression. The funky, whimsical quality that I strive for in these vessels has its most direct antecedent in slab built pottery from the Yixing traditions of both ancient and modern Chinese ceramics. . . . . . . . . . ." 

Student Works/Graduating Senior Exhibits

Student Works/Graduating Senior Exhibits

Dark Night of the Soul
Paintings by Wanda Steppe 

   "Dark Night of the Soul is a series of paintings that express my feelings of fear and hope that encompass the healing process.  After a devastating diagnosis and intense recovery period, I began to create work that expressed rather than repressed the fear.  I found that this had a very healing effect.
   "Essentially the work is about the passage of time and how outside forces have the power to transform.  The paintings are imaginary emotional landscapes that attempt to confront the dark times and understand that these are the experiences that mold us, make us what we become."
 
Secret Images
Works in Glass by Nikki Barnes 

   "Wanting to find out how far a material can be pushed, and how light and color can be formed to express not only a visual, but visceral response, has been my goal since I started working in glass seriously five years ago.  Every day in the studio is fraught with fear and exhilaration as I continue to try to portray the universe and life at both the cosmic and the infinitesimal levels.  Every object, be it the ladybug on the window sill, or the flash of a huge solar flare, contains not only the immediate image we process, but a secret image as well.  These 'secret images' are seen only in the margins of reality, in what the Australian Aborigines term 'the dreamtime.'  This state between waking and sleeping, just before we fall off the precipice of consciousness, is what I seek to explore and portray in my work."

Paintings by Tom Flowers

   "First of all I am an artist.  Not a painter or a sculptor, yet I do both.  Perhaps more painting than sculpture.  I am very visual minded and observe as much as I can (see).  Sometimes it is hard to sift out things or visions that are effective but I can usually do so.  I work on something visual every day whether it is a sketch or water color in my sketch book or chipping away at a current sculpture project or putting paint on a canvas or paper.  
   "Life is a learning experience."

From the Center
Paintings by Dagmar Nickerson

 "At the present moment I am living and working at a rural southern meditation center. . . The time spent living and working in a meditative, silent place has profoundly affected the art work that I produce.  My studio is a small porch that faces a pristine mountain forest. . . . I paint on heavy water color paper with acrylic inks, saturating the surface of the paper with water based metallic inks.  I use transparent glazes made of acrylic mediums, and adhesives for the gold leaf. . . .
   “The changing seasons in this mountain forest gave me the colors to reflect back onto the watercolor paper. . . .  allowing the reflective golds, silvers and bronzes to breathe.
   "This series of work is dedicated to our centers, within and without."

Dagmar Nickerson will give a visiting artist slide lecture in the Art History Lecture Hall (Fine Arts Center 213) on Tuesday, March 4, at 11:20 a.m.

There will be a reception honoring Art Gallery Series artists at 7:00 pm on Tuesday, March 4, in the Hyman Gallery.  The reception will be followed by a program of chamber music featuring the Woods Family including premiers and recent compositions by Sherry Woods.

From Korea to America: Bags and Banners
by Andrea Rosenberger 

In 2001 a Fulbright grant took Andrea Rosenberger to Korea to study “the effects of space and place” in this East Asian culture.  Her journey—a return to the land of her birth--has born fruit in a series of fiber pieces in which her own designs were digitally printed onto fabric.  “The patterns,” she writes, “are based on Korean words written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet.  The titles reflect the words written in Korean within the textile patterns, all of the patterns use the word ‘money’ or ‘child.’ These words reflect my relationship with the Republic of South Korea as Korean adoptee and as a Fulbright Scholar.  Korean traditional color schemes and everyday objects in contemporary Korean society inspire the color combinations.”

Andrea Rosenberger’s work is grounded in her feeling for design and function.  Her early training at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in textile design and metalsmithing is reflected in her current exhibition, as is her subsequent artistic development.  She makes objects that are connected with everyday life, suggesting “domestic functionality” while seeking the “in-between spaces” occupied by works of art that transcend the mundane to take on an esthetic life of their own, independent of function.

Andrea Rosenburger will give a visiting artist slide lecture in the Art History Lecture Hall (Fine Arts Center 213) on Monday, March 3, at 10:30 a.m.

There will be a reception honoring Art Gallery Series artists at 7:00 pm on Tuesday, March 4, in the Hyman Gallery.  The reception will be followed by a program of chamber music featuring the Woods Family including premiers and recent compositions by Sherry Woods.

Student Work

Student Work/Graduating Senior Exhibits 

Student Work/Graduating Senior Exhibits 

Florence Artists Guild Show 

The Florence Artists Guild is composed of a diverse group of thirty two experienced artists with the purpose of improving their skills in art through workshops, regular critiques, showing their work and exhibiting in juried competition.   Within this guild there are those with works showing statewide, regionally, nationally and internationally.  Members include painters of various media along with potters and photographers. Examples of present active guild members include a number of teachers, an architect, a college professor, full-time artists, a gallery and art supply shop owners, and commissioned portrait artists.  There are winners on all levels of exhibitions as well as a signature member of the National Colored Pencil Society, a member of the National Watercolor Society and many members of the South Carolina Watercolor Society. The guild has an active slate of officers, a newsletter with a calendar of events, and an annual business meeting to discuss current issues and concerns.  Mother and daughter artists, Jo Scarborough and Jenny LeVine are the coordinators for the Guild. The guild is most grateful the support of Francis Marion and particularly all that it offers the community artistically.  Education is a very important function of the guild to the extent that recently the guild received a grant that was funded in part by the Florence Area Arts Council and the South Carolina Arts Commission, which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts.  The Guild artists travel far and wide studying under other artists and collecting more images for painting subjects.  They are an active as well as social group that is supportive and nurturing of each other's talents.

Local Clay Art
by Local Clay Artists

Recent works by Doug Gray, Sasha Federer, Tari Federer, Carolyn Jebaily, Wanwadee Larsen and Elijah Thomas.

Photography
by Local Photographers 

Recent photography by N. B. Baroody, Gregorio Binuya, Dewey Ervin, Steven Gately, Pam Glass, Sidney Glass, Donna Goodman, Anne Lane, Kathy Pompe, Walter Sallenger and Elizabeth Tallon.