Past Exhibitions
2024
Art Department Faculty Exhibition
August 12th - October 8th, 2024
The CSU Department of Art Faculty Exhibition returns, showcasing a diverse collection
of works by current Columbus State University Art Department faculty. The exhibition
will be displayed across both the Bo Bartlett Center galleries and the Department
of Art Illges Gallery. Visitors can expect to see a wide range of artistic mediums,
including printmaking, ceramics, photography, sculpture, installation art, animation,
painting, and mixed media pieces.
Thank you to our sponsors Elizabeth and Mike Ogie.
Beyond Go Figure V
June 4th - August 24th
Beyond Go Figure was originally created to showcase and honor the many Board Members
and Friends of the Center who are artists. This exhibition features works created
by them as well as pieces produced by our local talent. Last year was truly a celebration
of the wealth of artistic talent in and around Columbus, GA, and the center is thrilled
that we are hosting Beyond Go Figure V this year with hopes to show even more of the
local artists in the area.
Thank you to our sponsors JoAnne and Bob Hecht.
Lennart Anderson: A Retrospective
February 1 - April 12, 2024
Lennart Anderson (U.S.,1928-2015) was an artist renowned for his deceptively complex
paintings that transform common delicacies, mundane objects and a sitter’s calm interiority
into phenomenological meditations on light, form and time. His paintings reveal a
world of things we may overlook; however, with the tender innocence and humor of a
haiku poet, he represents to us mysteries worthy of careful consideration. As he worked
from observation during the height of non-objective painting, he often described his
practice as “humble pie,” but he was unapologetic about his exhaustive search for
an elusive quality of light and the nobility of his subject.
In collaboration with the Lennart Anderson estate and Leigh Morse Fine Arts, and originating
from the New York Studio School, the Bo Bartlett Center will host one of the largest
iterations of this first major survey featuring more than 40 works from both private
and public collections, such as the Center for Figurative Painting, Brooklyn Museum,
Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia, and Pennsylvania Academy of the
Fine Arts.
Thank you to our sponsors:
- AHA Fine Art
- Bank of New York Mellon Corporation
- The Center for Figurative Painting, Inc.
- The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia
- Eliza Anderson
- Patricia and John Jacoby
- Alina Lundry
- Ippolita Rostagno
- Richard Spurzem
- Blair and Chris Woodruff
- Anonymous Donors
South Arts 2023 Southern Prize and State Fellows
February 1 - April 12, 2024
The Bo Bartlett Center is hosting the annual South Arts exhibition, which includes
nine artists residing in nine southern states. These artists are selected from a pool
of more than 800 applicants by a panel of jurors to receive their respective state
fellowships. The artistry on display is a testament to the strength of art in the
south, presenting diverse themes, visions, and styles. South Arts is a nonprofit regional
arts organization empowering artists, organizations, and communities, and increasing
access to arts and culture.
In partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the State Arts Agencies
of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Tennessee — with additional funding from other public and private donors
— South Arts supports artists and organizations through a rich and responsive portfolio
of grants, fellowships, and programs.
Thank you to our sponsors:
- Norman and Emmy Lou Illges Foundation
2023
Big Stories
September 16 - December 16, 2023
From Homer to Shakespeare to Spielberg, the history of Western Culture has been driven
by the narrative arc. Stories tell the tales of our lives. The heroic journeys of
all cultures, as recounted by Joseph Campbell in “A Hero with a Thousand Faces,” reveal
the important recurrent themes of transcendence through our shared experience. The
exhibition Big Stories, curated by Bo Bartlett, Noah Buchanan, and Carl Dobsky, at
the Bo Bartlett Center in Columbus, Georgia is a survey of large scale Contemporary
Figurative painting informed by the narrative tradition. Whether the narratives occur
in the imagery on the surface, or are deeply embedded in the paint, the paintings
of Big Stories open up the viewers thoughts and feelings about our shared stories
and call us to find meaning in this existence.
Thank you to our sponsors:
- Steven Alan Bennett and Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt
- Betty and Cecil Cheves
- Susan and Robert Culpepper
- Anna and Jake Flournoy
- Donna and Kerry Hand
- JoAnne and Bob Hecht
- Sandy and Otis Scarborough
- Anonymous Members of the Board of Advisors
Unstuck in Time: St. EOM, Pasaquan, Here, Now
September 16 - December 16, 2023
This exhibition showcases a diverse group of artists and artistic media. From painting
to music and from sculpture to ceramics, the artists were carefully selected not only
for their visual resonance with St. EOM‘s work but also for their shared vision, dedication
to their craft, and belief in the power of art to transcend the present and open portals
to new possibilities and worlds. The participating artists include Ryan Akers, David
Onri Anderson, Merrilee Challiss, Julia Elsas, Erik Frydenborg, Leia Genis, Sonya
Yong James, St. EOM, Robert Morgan, New Future City Radio (Damon Locks and Rob Mazurek),
Sarah Peters, Sonic Mud (Julia Elsas, Kenny Wollesen, Kirk Knuffke, Madeleine Ventrice),
and Sergio Suarez. The exhibit is curated by The Fuel and Lumber Company (artists
Amy Pleasant and Pete Schulte), who, with this exhibition, attempt to pay homage to
the spirit of Pasaquan and St. EOM‘s profound artistic legacy.
Thank you to our sponsors:
Ruth Foundation
Laney Contemporary
Susan Bridges from whitespace
Instruments of Historic Personality
September 15 - December 9, 2023
This partnership between the Sigal Music Museum, the Joyce and Henry Schwob School
of Music of Columbus State University, and the Bo Bartlett Center has been planned
since early 2021. The goal for this exhibit was to provide visitors with the kind
of immersive experience that the Sigal Music Museum provides on its premises, but
showcasing the talent of the Schwob School of Music’s talent through performances
on the instruments in the Bo Bartlett Center’s facilities.
The keyboards featured in in this exhibit—two harpsichords and four pianos—are some
of the finest examples of those instruments from the most renowned makers, or schools
of makers, in Europe and the United States at the time. These instruments were hand-selected
to display those instruments with exemplary and important histories, from who owned
them, to who may have played them, to their unique provenance or as an example of
a commonly owed instrument of their time.
Thank you to our sponsors:
Janice Watson
Barbara (Bobsie) Swift
Facts & Figures: Contemporary Realism
May 23–August 26, 2023
This installation presents some of the very best contemporary realist paintings from
the holdings of The Columbus Museum. As a survey in miniature, the exhibition provides
visual evidence to students and visitors of the style’s different inflections since
the 1950s. In addition, the exhibition will chart how the use of realism has evolved
from straightforward transcription to encompass more conceptual approaches. Featured
artists include Janet Fish, Burt Silverman, Wes Hempel, Jack Beal, and Bo Bartlett.
Beyond Go Figure IV
June 9–August 12, 2023
Beyond Go Figure was originally created to showcase and honor the many Board Members
and Friends of the Center who are artists. This exhibition features works created
by them as well as pieces produced by our local talent. Last year was truly a celebration
of the wealth of artistic talent in and around Columbus, GA, and the center is thrilled
that we are hosting Beyond Go Figure IV this year with hopes to show even more of
the local artists in the area.
If you are interested in submitting work to the upcoming exhibition, please know submissions are now closed.
Thank you to our sponsors: JoAnne and Bob Hecht.
Unaccompanied
February 7 – May 12, 2023
Using oil on canvas, Kate Capshaw’s portraits venture to shift the viewer’s two-dimensional
gaze to a more intimate experience—witnessing a life worthy of our attention. Capshaw’s
portraits are intended to be an invitation to move in closer, to follow one’s curiosity
to the deeper conversation.
In 2017, Capshaw had the opportunity to use portraiture to center the stories of youth
experiencing a range of challenges including homelessness in nine cities across the
United States. The result, a 24-portrait series entitled Unaccompanied. This exhibit
will bring together over 30 portraits and studies.
Most recently, three portraits from the series were exhibited at the National Portrait
Gallery in Washington D.C. as part of the 2019 triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait
Competition. The name-blind, open call garnered over 2,500 entries from across the
country. Her images were chosen among the work of 44 fellow finalists. In January
2023, the exhibit fortuitously concluded its tour in Capshaw’s hometown of St. Louis,
Missouri.
Earthly Matters
February 7 – April 28, 2023
Earthly Matters presents a selection of Bartlett’s recent works that examine humankind’s impact on
and interaction with nature’s elements. Bartlett’s subjects, both human and animal,
find themselves in precarious environmental situations, either from their own doing
or by forces beyond their control. Bartlett’s appreciation for the beauty of ordinary
moments imbues his work with an underlying luminosity and frankness. His larger-than-life
scenes break down the barriers between the subjects on canvas and the viewers, who
are invited to contemplate their role in the narrative.
This exhibition was curated by the Gibbes Museum of Art and is a traveling exhibition.
2022
South Arts 2022 Southern Prize and State Fellows
September 2nd – December 10th
The Bo Bartlett Center is once again hosting the annual South Arts exhibition in 2022
which includes nine artists residing in nine southern states. These artists are selected
from a pool of more than 800 applicants by a panel of jurors to receive their respective
state fellowships. The artistry on display is a testament to the strength of art in
the south, presenting diverse themes, visions, and styles. South Arts is a nonprofit
regional arts organization empowering artists, organizations, and communities, and
increasing access to arts and culture.
In partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the State Arts Agencies
of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Tennessee — with additional funding from other public and private donors
such as the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation —
South Arts supports artists and organizations through a rich and responsive portfolio
of grants, fellowships, and programs.
Exhibition Sponsors:
The Hughston Clinic
Bettye and Cecil Cheves
MIRROR|ЯOЯЯIM: American Self-Portraits In The Expanded Field
February 4th – June 10th
Curated by Jonathan F. Walz, MIRROR|ЯOЯЯIM: American Self-Portraits in the Expanded
Field will provide visual evidence to students and visitors of different self-portraiture
styles through time as well as changing ideas about the self. It is conceived in two
complementary parts. The first part provides an overview of historical American self-portrait
drawings, containing works from local collections and a self-portrait by Bo Bartlett.
The second part will contain a display of recent self-portraits from across the country.
MIRROR|ЯOЯЯIM: American Self-Portraits Catalog
(PDF)
Thank you to our Sponsors:
Exhibition Sponsors: Becky & Asa Swift
Reception Sponsors: Ruth & Jimmy Yancey
Catalog Sponsors: Sue Anne & Champ Baker / Sandy & Otis Scarborough
In-Sync: CSU Department of Art Faculty Exhibition
January 21st – March 25th
As in previous years, a selected body of work from the Department of Art Faculty will
be curated and exhibited in both the Bo Bartlett Centers galleries, as well as the
Department of Art Illges Gallery. The CSU Department of Art Faculty Exhibition will
contain a variety of work from the current faculty of the Columbus State University
Art Department including printmaking, ceramics, photography, sculpture, installation,
animation, painting, and mixed media work.
In-Sync: CSU Department of Art Faculty Exhibition Catalog
(PDF)
Thank you to our Sponsors:
Exhibition, Reception, and Catalog Sponsor: The Norman S. and Emmy Lou P. Illges Foundation
Competere: An Exhibition of Artist Couples
COMPETERE is a survey of Contemporary artist couples who are individually a vital
part of the current New York art scene. This exhibition explores the concerns of artist
couples while also comparing and contrasting the variety of artmaking approaches and
choices related to gender, location, and context.
“The Latin word competere means to “strive together.” It is the root of the English
word “competition.” Whereas “competition” suggests rivals, one faction determined
to overcome the other – competere means two equals striving for the betterment of
both.
In America, we are unaccustomed to such self-effacing practices. We are dog-eat-dog,
everyone out for themselves. Yet, Art, unlike sports, politics, technology or industry,
is a more benevolent enterprise. Within the artistic community, artists work in the
privacy of their studios, all the while, keeping an eye on what other artists are
doing, often feeding off a shared synergy to inform their own work. Art is evolutionary,
building upon itself and what came before. Competere is ubiquitous and instrumental
in Art history…”
– Betsy Eby and Bo Bartlett
Thank you to our Sponsors:
Exhibition Sponsors: JoAnne and Robert Hecht
Programming Sponsors: Becky and Sidney Yarbrough
Reception Sponsors: Anonymous Donors
Catalog Sponsors: Anna and Jake Flournoy
Competere: An Exhibition of Artist Couples Catalog
(PDF)
Beyond Go Figure III
July 1st – August 13th
Beyond Go Figure was originally created to showcase and honor the many Board Members
and Friends of the Center who are artists. This exhibition features works created
by them as well as pieces produced by our local talent. Last year was truly a celebration
of the wealth of artistic talent in and around Columbus, GA, and the center is thrilled
that we are hosting Beyond Go Figure III this year with hopes to show even more of
the local artists in the area.
If you are interested in submitting work to the upcoming exhibition, please know submissions
are now closed.
Thank you to our sponsors:
Exhibition Sponsors: Donna and Kerry Hand
Reception Sponsors: JoLyn and A.J Morris
Bennett Prize 2021
September 2nd – November 25th
The goals of The Bennett Prize are to support and promote the careers of women artists
working or endeavoring to work as full time professionals, and to provide greater
exposure for figurative realism. The winning artist receives $50,000 over a two year
period to support her practice and a solo show exhibition to premiere the work produced
through The Prize.
The exhibition is comprised of the paintings of the ten finalists for The Bennett
Prize, as determined by a panel of jurors from a national call for entries. All of
the artworks incorporate the realistic portrayal of the human figure.
Thank you to our Sponsors:
Exhibition, Catalog, and Reception Sponsors: Shannon and Peter Candler | Helen and
Comer Hobbs
2022 Bennett Prize 2021 Catalog
(PDF)
2021
South Arts 2021 Southern Prize & State Fellows
August 20th – December 20th
The Bo Bartlett Center will once again host the annual South Arts exhibition in 2021
to include nine artists residing in nine southern states. These artists are selected
from a pool of more than 800 applicants by a panel of jurors to receive their respective
state fellowships. The artistry on display is a testament to the strength of art in
the south, presenting diverse themes, visions, and styles. South Arts is a nonprofit
regional arts organization empowering artists, organizations, and communities, and
increasing access to arts and culture.
In partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the State Arts Agencies
of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Tennessee — with additional funding from other public and private donors
such as the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation —
South Arts supports artists and organizations through a rich and responsive portfolio
of grants, fellowships, and programs.
South Arts 2021 Catalog
(PDF)
Sponsors of South Arts 2021:
Exhibition Sponsors: Helen and Comer Hobbs / Donna and Kerry Hand
Catalog Sponsors: Becky and Asa Swift
Reception Sponsors: Bettye and Cecil Cheves
Music as Image and Metaphor
“Music as Image and Metaphor”Selections from the Kentler Flatfiles
January 22 – March 20, 2021
Music as Image and Metaphor brings together forty-one works by twenty-eight artists from the Kentler Flatfiles
focused on the theme of music. The theme of music-as-image includes works that were directly inspired by or are illustrative of sound art, while
the image-as-metaphor theme encompasses a diverse group of works that, directly or indirectly, reflect
the structure and artistic goals of musical composition and improvisation. As an incentive
to the viewer to pursue these rich connections more deeply, the exhibition also includes
a suite of one-minute musical responses to each graphic work, specially created for
the installation at the Bartlett Center. Some of the connections are direct and clear,
others poetic or even fanciful. Whatever the connection, this exhibition celebrates
the ongoing dance between the visual and the aural that is hundreds, if not thousands,
of years old.
Musical Responses: To listen press the AUDIO button under each artwork on the Kentler exhibition page.
The show includes a suite of miniature musical correspondences, one for each visual
work, created by composer-pianist Michael Kowalski and percussionist-composer Allen
Otte. Kowalski and Otte explore the various ways that a musical composition can relate
to a visual composition: as a gestural dialogue, as a thematic extension or development,
as a compositional analogy, as a soundtrack, or as a spontaneous reaction. The results
are often surprising, sometimes baffling, but always illuminating.
The Kentler Flatfiles are an essential element of Kentler International Drawing Space since its founding
in 1990. A compendium of artworks by more than 290 local, national and international
artists, this living archive represents the breadth, quality and variety found in
contemporary drawings and works on paper today. The Flatfiles are available for viewing
by the public and have become an important resource for artists, collectors, curators
and anyone interested in the field of drawing and prints. Selections from the Kentler
Flatfiles are regularly presented in guest-curated exhibitions at Kentler and in traveling
shows.
Kentler has also just installed 2 companion shows to Music as Image and Metaphor: Variations in Black & White. Ten artists from the current exhibition in Columbus are presented in Kentler’s front
gallery with black and white works on paper. If you are interested in the sister show
in Brooklyn, please click here.
Co-Curators: David Houston and Florence Neal
Musical track by Michael Kowalski and Allen Otte
Artists:
Herbert Brün, Beth Caspar, Phillip Chen, Abby Goldstein, Takuji Hamanaka, Keiko Hara,
robin holder, Richard Howe, Hannah Israel, Mary Judge, Kazuhiro Nishijima, Ralph Kiggell,
Rosalinda Kolb, Jiří Kornatovský, Robert Lansden, Simon Lewandowski, Jim Napierala,
Florence Neal, Margaret Neill, Morgan O’Hara, Gahae Park, Jaanika Peerna, Scott Pfaffman,
Orlando Richards, Susan Schwalb, Viviane Rombaldi Seppey, Molly Snyder-Fink, Hugh
Williams
January 22 – March 20, 2021
Virtual Panel Discussion: February 25, 5:30pm
A catalogue accompanies the exhibition.
Preview the Music as Image and Metaphor Catalog
(PDF)
Purchase the Music as Image and Metaphor Catalog
David W. Houston is currently the Director of the Ohr O’Keefe Museum of Art in Biloxi, Mississippi.
Artist and Curator Florence Neal is Co-Founder and Director of Kentler International Drawing Space in Brooklyn, New
York.
Composer-pianist Michael Kowalski and percussionist-composer Allen Otte have been collaborating on musical projects since the early 1970s. In addition to
his work as a soloist, teacher, and composer, Otte is a founding member of two of
the most important multiple percussion groups in the United States, the Blackearth
Percussion Group and The Percussion Group/Cincinnati. Kowalski was a pioneer in computer-assisted
sound synthesis and algorithmic composition in the 1970s. After years of composing
primarily for percussion, dance, and electronics, he turned to theatre and chamber
opera in the 1990s. Kowalski’s “Gringo Blaster,” commissioned and premiered by Otte
and the Percussion Group/Cincinnati, is available on an Einstein Records CD of the
same name.
Sponsors of Music as Image and Metaphor:
Kay Broda
Judye Harris
Janice Watson
Looking Male
August 20th – December 20th
This exhibition reflects on living in and looking at the southern region of the United
States. In response to the country’s recent social reawakening, the exhibit invites
critique, analysis, investigation, and admiration for what it means to be a man, a
good man, a southern man. The combination of photos examines issues centered on desire,
race, religion, class, and gender. It will be exhibited from August 20th – December
20th. The work will be on loan from the Do Good Fund.
The Do Good Fund, Inc. is a Columbus, Georgia based public charity. Since it’s founding in 2012, the fund
has focused on building a museum quality collection of photographs taken in the American
South since World War II. The collection ranges from works by more than 20 Guggenheim
Fellows to images by lesser-known and emerging photographers working in the region.
Do Good’s mission is to make its collection of nearly 600 images broadly accessible
through regional museums, nonprofit galleries, and nontraditional venues and to encourage
complimentary, community-based programing to accompany each exhibition.
Looking Male Catalog
(PDF)
Sponsors of Looking Male:
Exhibition & Catalog Sponsor: An Anonymous Member of the Board
Reception Sponsors: Hughston Clinic
Juan Logan: Creating and Collecting
April 9 – June 18, 2021
Working out of his studio in Belmont, North Carolina, artist Juan Logancontinues to
expand his art’s unyielding call for social responsibility. A retired University of
North Carolina Professor, Logan’s installations, sculptures, prints, and paintings
are included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Philadelphia
Museum of Art, the Mint Museum of Art, and many more. Through his many exhibitions
and a very successful career, Juan has amassed a collection of works from his friends
and sources of inspiration in the art world. Not only will this exhibition share his
many holdings by the most important artists from the 1970s to the present, it will
also present Juan’s own work in dialogue with his collection. The galleries will examine
the role that Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenberg, Robert Motherwell, Thornton Dial, and
more have played in Juan’s practice as an artist and how collecting has informed his
creative process.
Watch the Virtual Art Talk with Juan Logan that was on April 15, 2021.
Juan Logan: Creating and Collecting Catalog
(PDF)
This exhibition originated at the Hickory Museum of Art.
Sponsors of Creating & Collecting:
Sue Anne & Champ Baker
Sandy & Otis Scarborough
Bo Bartlett: 40 Years of Drawing
January 22 – March 20, 2021
From the ceilings of ancient caves to the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, art has always
been an essential part of human life. Whether it be for shamanistic purposes, to tell
a story, or simply to record an observation the images we weave together are our attempts
to reconcile the tension between our interior world and the world we live in; the
objective experience and the subjective perception of our experience. This is the
starting point of art, and drawing is the first visible manifestation of the union
between these worlds.
The collection of works gathered here mark the first major exhibition of Bo Bartlett’s
drawings. These works span forty years of the artist’s career, revealing an intimate
peek into a side of the artists’ life and oeuvre rarely seen by the public. It contains
not only drawings in graphite, but also more colorful works in gouache. The drawings
strike a potent counterpoint to the larger-than-life paintings that have defined Bo’s
career. As much as some of these drawings may reveal the embryonic stages of larger
ideas, these works are not intended as a means to an end. They are autonomous records,
existing as their own articulations and representations of movement in time.
Sponsors of 40 Years of Drawing Catalog:
Pat S. & Thelon A. Hamby III
Amandah S. & John T. Turner
Preview 40 Years of Drawing Catalog
(PDF)
Purchase 40 Years of Drawing Catalog
Beyond Go Figure II
July 2 – August 2, 2021
Beyond Go Figure was created to showcase and honor the many Board Members and Friends
of the Center who are artists. This exhibition features works created by them as well
as pieces produced by our local talent. Last year was truly a celebration, and the
center is thrilled that we are hosting Beyond Go Figure II in 2021.
If you are interested in submitting work to the upcoming exhibition, please know submissions
have been closed, please click here for more information.
Thank you to our exhibition sponsors:
JoAnne & Robert Hecht
We will be having a reception for this show on July 29th from 5-7pm, please
feel free to RSVP by emailing us: bobartlettcenter@columbusstate.edu.
There will be free food and beverage and it is open to the public. Feel free to contact
us with any questions you may have.
Thank you to our reception sponsors:
Sid and Becky Yarbrough
2020
South Arts 2020 Southern Prize & State Fellows
August 18, 2020 – January 8, 2021
The South Arts Southern Prize and State Fellowships celebrate and support the highest
quality artistic work being created in the American South. The exhibition will feature
works from the 2020 State Fellowship Artists.
The Bo Bartlett Center’s publication on South Arts 2020 Southern Prize and State Fellows
(PDF)
About South Arts
South Arts advances Southern vitality through the arts. The nonprofit regional arts
organization was founded in 1975 to build on the South’s unique heritage and enhance
the public value of the arts. South Arts’ work responds to the arts environment and
cultural trends with a regional perspective. South Arts offers an annual portfolio
of activities designed to support the success of artists and arts providers in the
South, address the needs of Southern communities through impactful arts-based programs,
and celebrate the excellence, innovation, value and power of the arts of the South.
For more information, visit SouthArts.org.
Beyond Go Figure
Featuring Artwork of the Bartlett Center Board of Advisors and Friends.
Many members of the Bartlett Center’s Board of Advisors are artists. The “Beyond Go
Figure” exhibition will feature works created by them as well as works created by
“Friends of the Center.”
Participants include: Don Beck, Helen Brooks, Sally Bradley, Shannon Candler, Bettye
Cheves, Dorothy Cheves, Betty Corn, Susan Culpepper, Geri Davis, Susan Dolan, Sia
Etemadi, Kristy Edwards, Jo Farris, Suzanne Reed Fine, Jack Flournoy, Dana Freeman,
Sally Gates, Thelon Hamby, Robert Hecht, Bunny Hinzman, Helen Hobbs, Jarrett Holbrook,
Maudie Huff, Katie Jacobson, Helen Johnson, Jessica Kennedy, Cora King, Nick Knowles,
Gloria Mani, Jonathan MacGregor, Jan Miller Elkins, Randy Nguyen, Elizabeth Ogie,
Margaret M. Page, Jill Chancey Philips, Garry Pound, Sandy Scarborough, Adleyn Scott,
Kate Scrivner, Ashlyn Simmons, Karen Stewart, Kate Waddell, Katherine Waddell, Anastasia
Waldecker, Julianna Wells, Susan Wiggins, Pat Wilensky, Kate Wilson, and John Wright.
Alyssa Monks
August 18, 2020 – January 8, 2021
Born in 1977 in New Jersey, Alyssa began oil painting as a child. She studied at The
New School in New York and Montclair State University and earned her B.A. from Boston
College in 1999. During this time, she studied painting at Lorenzo dé Medici in Florence.
She went on to earn her M.F.A. from the New York Academy of Art in 2001. She completed
an artist residency at Fullerton College in 2006 and has lectured and taught at universities
worldwide.
The tension in her paintings is sustained by the composition and also by the surface
quality itself. Each brushstroke is thickly applied, like a fossil recording every
gesture and decision, evoking the energy of the handmade object. The unpredictable,
activated surface recalls the human experience, creating empathy in the work. “I strive
to create a moment in a painting where the viewer can see or feel themselves, identify
with the subject, even be the subject, connect with it as though it is about them,
for them.”
Recently, she was named the 16th most influential woman artist alive today by Graphic Design Degree Hub. Her work was featured heavily in season 6 of the FX series The Americans in 2018.
View the Alyssa Monks Exhibition Catalog
(PDF)
Purchase the Alyssa Monks Exhibition Catalog.
2019
Wolf Kahn
The Bo Bartlett Center will proudly feature 35 paintings by internationally renowned
artist Wolf Kahn, October 1, 2019 through January 13, 2020.
About Wolf Kahn
Wolf Kahn (b. 1927, Stuttgart, Germany) immigrated to the United States in 1940. After
settling in New York City, Kahn studied briefly with Stuart Davis before going on
to study with the influential artist and teacher, Hans Hoffman during the rise of
the New York School and Abstract Expressionism.
Kahn is known for his shimmering, atmospheric landscapes with sweeping bands of color
and spontaneous mark-making. He has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim
Fellowship, an American Academy of Arts and Letters award, and a US State Department
International Medal of Art. Kahn’s work is in museum collections throughout the United
States including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of Art, The Museum
of Modern Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Wolf Kahn Catalog
(PDF)
The Man in the Canoe: Works by Manning Williams
The Charleston, South Carolina artist Manning Williams earned a Bachelors Degree in
English from the College of Charleston and a Master's Degree in Fine Arts from the
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. While at the Academy he began forging a highly
personal approach to realist painting, a style he continued for decades upon his return
to Charleston. Eschewing the picturesque subjects long associated with Charleston
art and artists, he found his subjects on the periphery of the city and along the
barrier islands, often concentrating on overlooked people and places.
The Man with the Canoe series began in the mid 1980’s with a wood carving, and later a bronze cast of the
subject. The first painting to include the man in the canoe is the orange still life
with a poster of Peter Paul Rubens in the Background. The man in the canoe became
a device to introduce the viewer to a range of subject matter, and in fact becomes
a proxy for the viewer. Conflating past and present, profound historic events and
the everyday, the man in the canoe is an observer of war, human cruelty, and environmental
loss and neglect. The most important paintings are largely dark and monochromatic
and painted in a dramatic narrative approach that dramatizes a slice of a larger historical
event or enigmatic subjects with an undertone of malice.
Manning taught at The Gibbes Museum Art School and the College of Charleston. In the
last two decades of his life Williams shifted his work from realism to abstraction.
Inspired by his comic book collection, television and the digital technology rapidly
changing the world. He saw this work as a continuation of his earlier work and wrote,
“I consider myself a narrative painter. Yet times have changed the way we see the
world. TV, movies, and the internet pour out information faster than we could have
imagined only a few years back. My work today is about finding new ways to narrate
our times.”
The Man in the Canoe: Works by Manning Williams Catalog
(PDF)
The South Arts 2019 Southern Prize and State Fellows
The South Arts Southern Prize and State Fellowships celebrate and support the highest
quality artistic work being created in the American South. The exhibition will feature
works from the 2019 State Fellowship Artists:
Jamey Grimes. Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Sculpture.
Amy Gross. Delray Beach, Florida. Sculpture.
Bo Bartlett. Columbus, Georgia. Painting.
Lori Larusso. Lexington, Kentucky. Painting.
Stephanie Patton. Lafayette, Louisiana. Multidisciplinary.
Rory Doyle. Cleveland, Mississippi. Photography.
Andrew Hayes. Asheville, North Carolina. Sculpture.
Virginia Scotchie. Columbia, South Carolina. Crafts.
Andrew Scott Ross. Johnson City, Tennessee. Multidisciplinary.
Bo Bartlett was recently awarded the 2019 South Arts State Fellowship award for Georgia.
About South Arts
South Arts advance Southern vitality through the arts. The nonprofit regional arts
organization was founded in 1975 to build on the South’s unique heritage and enhance
the public value of the arts. South Arts’ work responds to the arts environment and
cultural trends with a regional perspective. South Arts offers an annual portfolio
of activities designed to support the success of artists and arts providers in the
South, address the needs of Southern communities through impactful arts-based programs,
and celebrate the excellence, innovation, value and power of the arts of the South.
For more information, visit SouthArts.org.
South Arts is on view in the Hecht and Yarbrough galleries from May 23 through September
13, 2019.
The South Arts 2019 Southern Prize and State Fellows Catalog
(PDF)
Sketching Under the Skylight
Sketching Under the Skylights started at the Bo Bartlett Center in February 2019.
Being surrounded by Bo Bartlett’s fabulous, mammoth paintings is a source of inspiration
to many, so we decided it would be wonderful to have a model and invite the public
to come see us create and join in.
This is a collection of works from the last seven Sketching Under the Skylight sessions
– works from professional artists to the novices and even children.
Art is for everyone! Please join us and catch the creative spirit!
2018
Peers and Influences
Co-curated by Bo Bartlett and Betsy Eby, Peers & Influences represented a handful
of artists who have been significant within their circle of friendships as either
mentors, teachers, friends or contemporaries of Bartlett. This body of work represented
various approaches to both the human form and nature through three generations of
artists ranging from Raphael and Moses Soyer, born 1899 to Jordan Sokol, born 1979.
The opening reception of the Rebecca K. and Sidney H. Yarbrough III, M.D. and JoAnne
J. and Robert G. Hecht Visiting Artist Galleries included the following artists: Steven
Assael, Man Bartlett, Morris Blackburn, Will Cotton, Vincent Desiderio, Harvey Dinnerstein,
Betsy Eby, Inka Essenhigh, Randall Exon, Eric Fischl, Amaya Gurpide, Kate Javens,
Wolf Kahn, Ben Kamihira, Jeff Koons, Julio Larraz, David Ligare, Ben Long, Sally Mann,
Alyssa Monks, Steve Mumford, Odd Nerdrum, Sarah Peters, William Powhida, Nelson Shanks,
Amy Sherald, Wade Schuman, Jordon Sokol, Moses Soyer, Raphael Soyer, Patricia Traub,
Andrew Wyeth, and Jamie Wyeth.
This exhibition was up January 18 to March 31, 2018, and was made possible by support
from:
Robert W. & Susan S. Culpepper
Wade H. & Teresa Pike Tomlinson
Keith & Ann Douglas
Bo Bartlett & Betsy Eby
Masters of Russian Realism
Masters of Russian Realism
This exhibition brings together the work of four Soviet-born artists which span the
communist and post-communist worlds. Trained in the exacting style of Soviet Realism
that dominated the soviet art academies, each of these artists looked to the West
to find a post-communist approach to contemporary realist painting. Drawing from modernism,
Pop Art, illustration and conceptual art, each artist has freely explored a variety
of approaches and found their own path through the post-communist Russian cultural
diaspora.
These works are drawn from the extensive personal collection of global art assembled
by the noted vascular surgeon, Wayne Yakes of Denver, Colorado.
Oleg Vassiliev
1931 -2013
One of the most celebrated artists and illustrators of his generation, Vassiliev’s
career spanned the Second World War and the demise of the U.S.S.R. He studied painting
and illustration at the V.I. Surikov State Art Institute and was one of the founders
of the “unofficial” art movement of the 1960s and 70s. For 33 years, he illustrated
children’s books in partnership with Erik Bulatov (who’s portrait is included in this
exhibition) and developed a highly-personal painting style, based on his scientific
studies of energy, light, and space. His work is an important bridge between traditional
soviet realism, the modernist avant-garde, and contemporary conceptual realism.
Genia Chef
b. 1954
Genia Chef is an example of a post-soviet global artist. Born in Aktjubinsk, Kazakhstan,
U.S.S.R., he studied at the Polygraphic Institute in Moscow in the mid-1970s and the
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria, from 1988 to 1993. An example of an international
post-soviet artist, Chef emigrated to Europe in 1985 and to New York City in 1983.
He currently lives in Berlin, Germany.
Chef’s style, although groomed in the Soviet Realism of the academy, is influenced
by Pop Art and illustration. He has illustrated a range of books, including works
by Poe, Michael Lederer, and his own Finger World, published in Germany in 1993. The
works in this exhibition encompass a range of styles and influences from 2006 to the
present.
Komar and Melamid
Vitaly Komar, b. 1943
Alexander Melamid, b. 1945
Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid enjoyed a dynamic artistic partnership that lasted
from 1972 to 2003. Born in Moscow, both artists studied at the Stroganov Institute
of Art and Design and soon made a name for themselves as dissident artists. In 1974,
their provocative work was destroyed by Soviet authorities and they were expelled
from the youth section of the Moscow Union of Artists in 1975. They were among the
first Soviet-born artists to make a place for themselves in the West and immigrated
to New York City in 1978.
Their iconoclastic approach navigates through realism, performance, and installation
and is grounded in conceptual art. Their work made a significant contribution to the
development of postmodern art in America.
Bruno Civitico: American Classicism
One of the most important artists of the Neoclassical Figurative revival movement,
Bruno Civitico was born in northern Italy and emigrated to the United States as a
teenager. He earned a BFA at Indiana University and an MFA at the Pratt Institute.
He was visiting artist at Princeton University and a Professor on the art faculty
of The University of New Hampshire, a position he resigned in the mid 1980’s to paint
full time.
Civitico emerged as a young artist when abstraction dominated contemporary art and
choose to pursue the traditional subjects of landscape, still life, and the human
figure in approaches ranging from a direct perceptual realism to a highly mannered
Neoclassicism. Drawing on his Italian heritage, Civitico combined traditional subject
matter with a complex cubist derived space and contributed, as both an artist and
a teacher, to the figurative revival of the Postmodern era.
Drawing has always been a daily practice for Civitico. His natural approach to line,
like his paintings, follows traditional subject matter in a variety of styles. Some
of the works included herein are preliminary studies for large paintings, quick sketches
of germinal ideas for further articulation or drawing as a complete end in itself.
The drawings are grouped in the subjects of portraiture, female figures, male figures
and group compositions.
Civitico currently lives and maintains a studio in Charleston, South Carolina.
Bruno Civitico: American Classicism Publication
(PDF)
America On Paper: Selections From The Cochran Collection from the Bo Bartlett Center
Wesley Cochran began collecting in 1973 with the purchase of Romare Bearden’s The
Family. Since then, he and his wife and collecting partner, Missy, have amassed a
collection of several hundred artworks focused on African-American artists, Andy Warhol,
and 20th-century graphics. Their collection, based in LaGrange, Georgia, has toured
many American museums and university galleries. This is the first exhibition from
the collection that draws from each of the three discreet bodies of work.
The Cochran Collection documents some of the most compelling American art executed
in the 20th Century. Works by most of the noted and recognized artists (Warhol, Rosenquist,
Johns, Blackburn, Barnet, Gilliam, Picasso and many others) are represented here.
These works are a profound documentation of the 20th Century's American social and
cultural scene. The selections chosen for The Cochran Collection are reflections of
the last half of the last century and manage to point toward what we might expect
in and from the art world in this new millennium. The Pop, African-American, Abstract,
Representational, Realist, Non-representational, and women artists in The Cochran
Collection, portray America's overall popular attitudes, definitions, divisions, and
directions. These are some of the factors making The Cochran Collection one of the
most significant private art collections in the United States today.
This exhibition is made possible by the support of Jimmy and Ruth Yancey.
America on Paper: Selections From The Cochran Collection Publication
(PDF)