The mission of the art galleries program is to present exhibitions that support and enhance the academic goals of the visual arts program at Francis Marion University, providing a non-profit institutional setting in the service of society for educational purposes. Under the supervision of the Fine Arts Department faculty, the galleries curator is committed to researching, exhibiting and interpreting for the purpose of study, objects, activities, and documents focused on the visual arts.

Senior shows are required of all students majoring in Visual Arts. At the end of each semester, the galleries also feature works produced by students enrolled in studio art classes. These shows give students hands-on experience in selection and installation of artworks, publicity of exhibition, and external review by the University community and general public.

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.

FMU Student Art Guild Invitational

Danger in the Idyllic: South Carolinians at Risk
Photo Essay by Lisa Pike & Lynn Hanson  

This photo essay by professors Lynn Hanson and Lisa Pike is one of the culminating products of an interdisciplinary project involving students in Ms. Pike's Honors Environmental Science class and Dr. Hanson's Business Writing and Technical Communication classes during fall 2002.  Over 149 students were involved in the project with at least 59 contributing to the content of a CD entitled The Mercury Problem in South Carolina's Freshwaters.  The 15 photos and interpretive labels focus on the danger of eating mercury-contaminated freshwater fish in South Carolina.  

Nature Observed - Paintings and Drawings by Stephen M. Welch

"Growing up in rural Clarendon County, my family instilled in me a great appreciation for the world of nature surrounding me. . . . For as long as I can remember, one of my favorite pastimes was sketching and I would sketch with anything and on anything available.  I loved nature and decided at an early age to become a biologist. The selection of my work is due in part to actually observing the subjects in the wild and trying to capture them in their natural settings. I prefer to paint animals that are often overlooked because of their size or often disliked because of the stigmas associated with them.  Through my work, I hope to make people aware that these organisms are just as important as other plants and animals commonly recognized and loved."

Stephen Welch teaches biology at Francis Marion University and in the Wilson High School International Baccalaureate Program in Florence, SC.

2004 Art & Art Education Alumni Invitational
Gallery Gala Reception -- 7:00 pm Thursday, September 30th

Cultural Compost: Quilts from Surface to Content
Fiber Arts by Ellen Kochansky

In 20 years of public and private commissions, Ellen Kochansky has evolved through the familiar quilter’s concerns with color, image and technique, into more philosophical issues of community, archives and environment.  Current works in progress are both two- and three-dimensional.  Still suggesting quilts, they solicit materials from the members of the group for which they are made, creating a dynamic commitment.  Training in theatre generates awareness of distance impact; passion for detail assures close-up interest.

"These current expressions represent three inspirations that have generated my recent themes... Personal and universal journaling, the simplicity and transparency of a single textile, and the conviction that we as individuals and as a culture scorn and discard what will prove to have mattered most... Through these works I hope we can recover awareness of our frugality, and celebrate the richness of our simplest resources."

Included in Ellen's exhibit is her series entitled "Mill Memory."  Commissioned as a companion to the book Textile Town, this collective community work is composed of hundreds of contributions from the people of Spartanburg County, relating to the history of the textile mills.  A non-verbal history, it is framed in the floors of the demolished mills, and will become a permanent part of the planned Spartanburg Arts Center.

Ellen Kochansky lives and works in Pickins, S.C.

Between Abstraction and Figuration
Watercolors & Mixed Media Works by Kees Salentijn 

Born in Amsterdam in 1947, Kees Salentijn's work is characterized by a duality between figuration and abstraction. He has been a forceful presence in the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and other European countries for decades. Strongly influenced by Spanish painters such as Saura and Millares, Salentijn's style is evocative of spontaneous creation without aesthetic premeditation.

Selections from Salentijn's sketches and notebooks were published as a book earlier this year. Salentijn has developed a personal style that combines expressionist, painterly, vigorous strokes with smaller but equally expressionist marks that are quick and slightly nervous, but sure and on-target.

Shapes from Within - Pottery by Sasha & Tari Federer

"Working in clay represents, for me, a timeless desire to combine objects of use with beauty, by creating the unique from the ordinary, and to experience beauty in everyday moments."  - Sasha

Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia Republic, Sasha has lived in USA for half his life, in Florence for nine years -- as a clinical psychiatrist by profession, and as a potter by passion.  He studied pottery in Washington and Wisconsin, worked three years as a professional potter in New Hampshire and served as artist-in-residence with the National Endowment for the Arts.

"Working with clay represents the interconnectedness with the forces of nature that surround, and inspire us, along with the shapes that evolve from deep within. My mission is to combine these shapes and forces into art form and functionality." - Tari

Spending much of her life in the Southwest, Tari studied as an art major at Ventura College and the University of California Santa Barbara.  A few years ago she closed her studio in North Carolina and moved to Florence, SC, to marry and join forces with Sasha.  Their joining has resulted in a creative collaboration in their quest to create in clay at their studio, Feather Pottery.

Student Works by FMU Photography Classes

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Senior Shows by Graduating FMU Visual Arts Majors

Student Works by FMU Painting Classes

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Student Works by FMU Ceramics Classes

Works on Paper by Howard Frye

"I’m a linear person.  I’ve always been attracted to the expressive qualities of line and so I have a natural affinity for drawing....  Looking at a drawing, you get a glimpse of the artist’s thought process in its most direct form; you can see where the artist paused, and which parts of the drawing he or she gave the most attention.... I use to be worried about finding interesting subject matter or developing a style; now I’ve come to understand that it is not so much what you make, but rather how you make it.... Conceptually, I’m interested in creating visual puns, paradoxes, and games related to visual culture.  In today’s world, people are exposed to an unceasing repetition of images and contradictory messages, which I think results in both confusion and fatigue, and there is a danger that this could lead to numbness, apathy, and isolation. Much of my recent work alludes to this reality at least on some level, whether it’s by making jokes of art history, creating free-flowing images, or by combining visual elements to make a new image."

Dr. Howard Frye teaches Art Education and Printmaking at Francis Marion University.

Reorganization of Space - Digital Images by Kathleen Pompe

"I am attracted to and photograph places and items that are mysterious or incongruous.  It is the details, rather than the whole, that interest me because it is in the details that I can imagine the fantastic.  When I reassemble the parts, the outcome is unique, and often far removed from the original.  I tend to be drawn to the architecture of a place because the architecture reveals cultural information and insights of the people who live there.    For example, in Cuba, the architecture suggested a people and culture at an impasse; a place where time is standing still, despite attempts at renovation.

"The digital images are narratives of landscapes that only partially exist.  They represent views of places that are personal, surreal, and a product of my imagination.  Although I present views of places as they exist today, I can’t resist creating personal, imagined places.  The altered images are digital narratives, where my mind’s eye creates a story of an alternate reality."

Kathleen Pompe is Professor of Photography at Francis Marion University.

Sculptural/Functional Clay Works from USC's Ceramics Program

Ken Baskin, MFA Student
Jill Allen, MFA
Andrea Moon, MFA
Matt Berglund
Justin Guy, BFA
Shelby Duensing, BFA
Rene Rouillier, Adjunct Instructor
Virginia Scotchie, Professor

The exhibition will highlight the creative research from the University of South Carolina Columbia Ceramic Studio within the Department of Art. The Ceramic Area has received national attention through its dynamic program which is headed by Professor Virginia Scotchie. Professor Scotchie has headed the program for the past 11 years. She received her MFA from Alfred University in New York and has exhibited her work on an international scale.

The graduate students at USC come from Michigan, New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnisota and Korea. The work includes a variety of handbuilt and wheel thrown forms exploring new directions in the ceramic arts.

Paintings by James Meekins

Beginnings - Paintings by Anya Belkina

"The central motif of Beginnings is the Russian nesting doll, or matreshka.  Leveraging the toy's inherent theme of propagation, parenthood and sacrifice, the pieces explore the dangerous mutations and ironic reversals of family relationships.  In addition to referencing female forms, the images can be interpreted more broadly as visual metaphors for cyclical process common to all matter; they speak of birth, development, decay, death, and regeneration."

Anya is an assistant professor of drawing and painting at Duke University.

Spirit Houses by Carol Owen

"My Spirit Houses tell family stories that celebrate the people, places and events important to us.  The house image represents shelter, family and memories of home.  These Spirit Houses are shrines to such memories.  They make sacred those shards of the past that have made us what we are.

Carol lives and works in Pittsboro, NC.  Her recent publication, Crafting Personal Shrines, is available through Lark Books.  Visit her website at www.carolowenart.com

Student Works by FMU Drawing Classes

Art Gallery Series
April 5-18, 2005 
Smith University Center Gallery

Student Works by FMU Painting Classes

Student Works by FMU Painting Classes

Senior Shows by Graduating FMU Visual Arts Majors

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Student Works by FMU Photography Classes

Student Works by FMU Ceramics and 3-D Design Classes

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Recent Works by Jackie Wukela

"My hope is to explore the world of color and light -- looking at things we see every day and recording them during a moment of magic."

After several years as an elementary school teacher and then full time wife and mom, Jackie Wukela now devotes much of her time to her art.  Educated in Georgia with a degree in education and further work in art at the University of South Carolina, Jackie has been doing commission work for over 20 years.

Although she began working in acrylics, over the years patron requests have led to study and work in watercolor, pencil, colored pencil, pastels and oils.  "Commission work spawns ideas, so it becomes at once a luxury and then a necessity to have time to try out new techniques or further develop old interests.  I try not to get bogged down in one medium for too long.  I do a great deal of portrait commissions in oil and colored pencil, but my most innovative work right now is in acrylics."

Recent Works by Lynda English

Lynda English is a native of Florence, South Carolina.  She is a member of the Florence Artist's Guild, a Member of Excellence in the South Carolina Watercolor Society, a signature member in the Southern Watercolor Society and a signature member in the CPSA (Colored Pencil Society of America).  Lynda taught art to 6th graders through high school at The King's Academy in Florence for four years.  She and a business partner, Jackie Wukela, own the Lynda English Studio-Gallery & Art Supply.  She teaches beginner and advanced watercolor classes and watercolor collage at the Gallery, and does portrait and landscape commissions in watercolor and colored pencil.

Lynda paints and draws in a very realist manner giving great attention to color and detail.  She enjoys layering her watercolors and colored pencils to achieve strong rich colors.  Her favorite subjects are ones that have strong lights and darks.  She also likes zooming in on ordinary objects, bringing the viewer right up to them so that they can feel and see things that normally they would overlook and take for granted.