In this alternate take from a documentary on Charlestonian Patrick Pelletier, the artist discusses his abstract painting King of the Castle.

Piccolo Spoleto's "Vanishing Landscapes" is the 24th Annual Juried Art Exhibition. It's at the City Gallery at Waterfront Park through Aug 8. I spoke to 1st place winner Lidia Richardson at her studio.

I've just heard that Philip Hyman, organizer of the "Evolution" multi-venue art show and all around good guy, had a heart attack yesterday and is recovering after surgery. He wants the show to go on and he's looking for help.

Local photographer Badjon has put out this APB:

"If u can help with hanging art, setting venues, directing people, organizing, anything...we need your help...

"We will need someone to help with accepting all the art, mostly during the day and afternoons...

"If u can give anything, lights, wood, screws,nails,concrete screws,hanging wire, etc...we would be much appreciative..."

For more information and contact details, visit the Evolution webpage on MySpace.

An alternate take from Patrick Pelletier, a documentary about the Charleston, SC painter filmed in 2007.

This week, the Spoleto Festival has descended on Charleston like a day-glo fog. I can see the signs already: Calhoun Street jammed with out-of-state vehicles, tents nestled on Marion Square like a Native American reservation, and Chinese acrobats shopping at the local Asian grocery store (what's wrong with Publix?).

Spoleto is a 17 day festival of music, theatre and dance. Visual art is non-existent, because it's harder to charge an entry fee for art shows. But fear not, all lovers of marsh paintings. There's also a Piccolo Spoleto - a fringe fest organized by the city's Office of Cultural Affairs. Piccolo is full of plays, musicians, comedy and -yay! - artists.

I'll be covering as much of the festival(s) as I can and contributing reviews, podcasts and videos to Charleston's local papers. If I ever get past all the traffic on Calhoun Street.

I snapped a few pix at the Upper Deck art show, May 20th 2008. Music by Ice Bread. Prints by Johnny Pundt.

It took me a while (because it's kind of tucked round the side of Pita Pit on King Street) but last night I found the Upper Deck Tavern and saw some deft art on the walls. (I haven't been there for a while and I have a lousy sense of direction).

DJ/artist Ice Bread and graphic guru/artist Johnny Pundt threw up a show at very short notice - which is even more surprising when you consider that Pundt's part of a group show at West Ashley's Voodoo lounge on Thursday May 22nd.

Also on the Voodoo cards: Julio Cotto, SHT!, Wolfkid, Ishmael, Scott Debus, Carl Janes, Proton.rt, Josh Branstetter and Badjon Photography.

DJ D ROCK and DR FUZZ will be on the 1's and 2's!!

The organizers have also teamed up with Continuum skate shop for a Nike sb "heat" contest. Simply wear your best sb dunks to the show and come enter for free to win a pair up up coming sb's from Continuums new 843 store.

A couple of Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) students told me about the perils of drawing nudes. "We always get fat, ugly models," they complained. This was brought home to them when SCAD did a nude show with a beautiful, lithe young model on the poster. "How come our models never look like that?" asked a male student.

Over here in Charleston, our nudes are as tasteful as the populace is polite. Hopefully we'll get a mix of real-life lumpiness and ethereal beauty in Nudes, a group show at the John M. Dunnan Gallery in downtown Charleston. The talented bunch of professional artists include Dunnan, Brianna Stello and John Carroll Doyle.

Here are the full details:

The John M. Dunnan Gallery is welcoming John Carroll Doyle, John Dunnan, Anna Murray, Landis Powers, Patrick Pelletier, Brianna Stello and McLean Stith for their opening exhibit Nudes, Tuesday January 22nd from 5:30-8:30pm at 131 King St. The Nudes exhibit is on display through February 14.

About the artists:

John Carroll Doyle is a nationally acclaimed, self-taught artist born in Charleston. He began his career doing commissioned large-scale paintings in the eighties for restaurants. Best known for his creative and impressionistic use of light and color, his paintings incorporating many different subjects and scenes are uniquely timeless pictorial representations. Doyle has also worked to become an accomplished photographer working on such projects as Femininity & I See London I See France.

John Dunnan, a native of Washington, D.C. now resides in Charleston, SC, where he owns the John M. Dunnan Gallery. Dunnan, a graduate of the Corcoran College of Art, is well known for his stylistic gesture drawings, abstract and figurative paintings and sculptures as well as his contributions and involvement with numerous arts organizations.

Born and raised in Charlotte, N.C. Anna Murray’s career has spanned from Wall Street to King Street. Anna’s work behind the lens of her camera has grown to include not only candid portraits of children and families, but also fine art studies of the human form and the world around us.

Landis Powers, a native of Detroit, Michigan, began his artistic career in early youth. After years of traveling as a designer and educator in the art of hair design, he moved to Charleston. Landis’ intellectual artistic vision is manifest in his contemporary expressionist style and free-spirited nature.

Born in California, Patrick Pelletier possesses a level of fresh creativity that is grippingly conceptual. Patrick has also had an immense passion for art since his youth, influenced by everything that surrounds him and inspires him in daily life. His mostly abstract work is a somewhat transcendental representation of reality.

Brianna Stello is a native of Cape Cod, exposed to the noble art of photography since birth by means of her mother Jennifer Stello. Brianna’s eye and mind-opening travels and imaginative perspective reflect a diverse and culturally rich aesthetic. Through the lens, she is able to materialize her vision, and the result is a captured moment, which speaks for itself.

McLean Stith was born in Great Lakes, Illinois and raised in Greenville, SC. Her first form of personal artistic expression was through the written word; however, poetry could not satisfy her hunger for a life-changing creative experience. McLean began painting during her medical residency in the late nineties, and fell in love with this new way of connecting deeply and emotionally to not only herself but the world around her as well. Artistically self-taught, McLean’s work portrays great diversity of subject matter.

Philip "The Machine" Hyman - aka Mr. Eyeball - is tirelessly devoted to promoting original, contemporary art in Charleston and its environs (his tirelessness has earned him the "Machine" tag - not sure about the Eyeball one).

He has two new shows this weekend. One is a group show at the Old Village called Distractions from the Truth.

The other, at Vickery's in downtown Charleston, is a solo exhibition to mark the one year remaining of President Bush's term. Hyman reckons he's already under suspicion and expects Homeland Security to visit him after the one-week-only affair. Of course he's kidding (I think), but a one-man show from the creator of "RoboCheney" has got to be worth surveilling.

Here are the sordid details:

Distractions from the TRUTH: “An art show”

Instead of finding out what Britney and Paris are up to, come see an art show with plenty of TRUTH and great distractions. Musical entertainment by Subterranean Bleu Mind(s) and DJ “The Bird Hermit”

Saturday January 19th, 7pm-11pm at The Mill, East Montague Ave. in the Old Village, North Charleston, S.C.

Show features artists Erin Eckman, Phillip Hyman, Connie O’Donald, Sharen Mitchell, Chuck Keppler, Michael Lane, Seth Corts and others.

Count Down to 1/20/09 “Reflections of the politics of war, a one man art show”

Artist Phillip Hyman reflects in art….. how he kept his sanity for the last 7 years during the Bush administration.

Meet the artist on opening night January 20th, 7pm-9pm at Vickery's Bar & Grill, 15 Beaufain Street, Charleston, S.C.

Art will be on display until Sunday January 27th.

Hyman hangs out with some of his zombie art, displayed at the Undead on Arrival book launch at The Black Cart, downtown Charleston. Can't imagine what he's pointing at.

I recently got the chance to catch the Cuba Libre art show at Robert Lange's Upstairs studio. It features abstract paintings by Patrick Pelletier:

...And photography by Brianna Stello...

...all with a Cuban flavor. They're both extremely talented artists, and Pelletier in particular is trying out some new ideas (portraits, figures, streetscapes) for this show. It would be all too easy for an artist to stick with a tried and tested concept - Pelletier's shimmering blocks of color have been a big hit locally. So kudos to the painter for stretching himself with new stuff.

Stello's black and white photography is stunning. It's all printed on canvas and she's included smaller, very affordable pieces in this exhibition.

The show closes this week, so take a look if you get the chance. It's at 151 East Bay St., downtown Charleston, SC.

Mt. Pleasant’s Old Village is a quaint neighborhood where shrub-obscured street signs lead to narrow, winding thoroughfares jam-packed with parked cars. It’s the oldest part of Mt. P and it’s on the National Register of Historic Places. Rumor has it that some its residents are too.

Sandwiched between the crafty Out of Hand shop and an old-school pharmacy that opened in the ‘30s is Utonga Gallery. Despite its proximity to the container ships that bring in quarterly shipments of sculptures, this is still an unlikely place for an internationally known gallery. For Tim Anderson, Utonga’s Zimbabwe-born owner, the location is more of a lifestyle choice than a business one.

“We could be anywhere really,” says Anderson. “We sell primarily on the internet to customers all over the place.” He left his homeland in 1980, the same year that it gained its independence, and now travels back there every six to eight weeks to select new stock for Utonga. But recently he’s witnessed a drastic change in the Southern African country.

“Seven years ago I sold my parents’ house in an upscale area for 3.1 million Zimbabwean dollars,” he says. “That was about 60-70,000 US dollars. Now that amount would be worth $5.”

With inflation at 1200% and unemployment at 80%, an Aids pandemic and soaring health costs, the former Jewel of Africa’s major economy-booster – tourism – has collapsed. The repressive government led by President Robert Mugabe has “made no constructive effort to make things better,” Anderson believes.

It might seem that the harsh recession would work in the gallery owner’s favor; up and coming artists have to be very good or very cheap to catch the eyes of dealers. But Anderson wants to support the artists by paying them as much as he can. “You want the guy to be there next time,” he explains. “It’s a tough place, yet beautiful sculpture comes out of there.”

As far as Anderson knows, Utonga’s the only gallery on the East coast that sells such stonework, which explains why parts of the establishment are packed to the rafters with hand-created sculptures.

When we hear the words “African sculpture,” we automatically think of the generic ornamental tosh produced for tourists. Fortunately, although there’s some solely decorative work at Utonga, there’s also plenty of solid art as well.

Anderson and his wife, Dawn, have been able to forge relationships with two generations of Shona sculptors and it’s possible to trace developing trends in the movement while exploring the gallery. Most of the pieces are carved from chunky springstone, dark and smooth with an occasional, colorful mineral vein or flash of volcanic red.

Sam Mabeu’s conceptual “Bird Totem” uses this material and makes it look delicate in places, with the mere suggestion of a beak or a wing. Lincon Muteta’s green opalstone “Abstract” is also rough-hewn, curling and twining to a tapered crag at the top. “They take things from their life, culture and spiritual beliefs,” says gallery manager Brigitte Surette, “staying true to the roots of their tribal region.” But the most accessible pieces for many visitors are the ones that acknowledge modern life too.

Sylvester Mubayi’s “Modern Woman” is a springstone head that plays on primiutive and modern aesthetics, marrying simply carved eyes and ears with complex tresses. Sirio Marezva’s “Letter from My Boyfriend” is close to life-size, taking a traditional figure and plunking a contemporary, handwritten letter in its hands.

The gallery’s progressive feel is increased by the presence of abstracts by Charleston painters, brightening up the stony space. Christopher Murphy echoes early photographic negatives with his acrylic on wood pieces, accompanying some larger multihued work; Lynne Riding contributes colorful, imaginative selections from her “Pritchard Island” and “Spring Island” series.

It’s amazing that these art styles complement each other without making the gallery look too cluttered. The mix of Chucktown art with ambitious African abstract sculptures is diverse yet that’s part of its charm, reflecting the quirky environment of the Old Village. “This neighborhood is eclectic and different,” says Surette, “just like us.”

Biggs at the Gibbes

With dashing young director Todd Smith now in charge, the Gibbes Museum of Art is clawing its way into the 21st Century. The place is known for its Charleston Renaissance paintings, but it’s also got abstracts, sculptures, Japonisme, Whistler etchings and God knows what else stored beneath its draughty rafters. Recently, the Gibbes added video art to its collection with Janet Biggs’ Citadel-shot Like Tears in Rain.

I’m torn in twain when I see video art. On the one hand, it’s good to see art expanding its boundaries and making itself accessible to Boob Tubers. But the filmmaker/film critic side of me picks up on the seemingly inevitable flaws in the camerawork, sound, editing and the way the subject is presented.

Biggs’ latest has some nice themes but the videography is less than perfect. She’s done other, slicker stuff in the past. You can hear her talk about her work in an interview she did at the Gibbes. I recorded the chat back in May.