by Greg | Oct 31, 2022 | News
Greenville, SC – Greenville Center for Creative Arts (GCCA) has promoted Ben Tarcson to the position of Gallery Director. As one of the longest-serving staff members at GCCA, Tarcson has played an important role in the strategic development of GCCA’s exhibition program, facilitating the committee review process and serving as a liaison to exhibiting artists.
In his new role as Gallery Director, Tarcson will become the lead advisor to the Brandon Fellowship program, as well as continuing his exhibition management duties. Tarcson has coordinated and installed over 50 art exhibitions across the Main, Community, and Studio Artist Loft galleries during his five years with GCCA. Some notable exhibitions include The South Carolina State Art Collection’s Contemporary Conversations and Narratives Ending in Separation by Linda McCune, amongst many others.
Tarcson is a graduate of Allegheny College with a bachelor’s degree in studio art, a concentration in painting, and a minor in history. While at Allegheny College, he worked as a Gallery Assistant for the college’s Bowman-Penelac-Megahan art gallery, where he assisted exhibiting artists and the Director & Curator with exhibition installation and other art-related events.
CEO Jess Burgess comments, “Ben’s promotion is a direct result of his exemplary work and dedication throughout his time at GCCA, and we’re thrilled to support his continued growth as a leader for the organization.”
Join GCCA for its next exhibition opening on Friday, November 4, from 6-9 p.m., to see the newly installed Square Roots by Sarkis Chorbadjian in the GCCA Community Gallery.
by Greg | Oct 1, 2022 | News
Greenville, SC – Greenville Center for Creative Arts (GCCA) is excited to announce the opening of a new Community Gallery solo exhibition, Square Roots, featuring Sarkis Chorbadjian. The exhibition will open on Friday, November 4th from 6 – 9 pm. Square Roots will continue on display through Wednesday, December 21st, 2022.
In Square Roots, Sarkis Chorbadjian showcases square-formatted paintings that explore the application and removal of oil & cold wax layers. For Sarkis, scratching large, square painting surfaces to their roots reveals an emotional significance that is a product of the process in which he works. His abstract landscape paintings are personal responses to places he has visited or imagined. The viewer is invited to travel with the artist, to feel and sense the memories, and to discover new ones.
Sarkis Chorbadjian
Originally from the island of Cyprus, Sarkis has lived in Greenville South Carolina since 1978. Formerly of the decorative arts, interiors, and gilding world, Sarkis’ background in color and design informs his current abstract expressionist painting style. Experiences from travel and memories of the ancient world play a major role in his artwork. His abstract landscape paintings are personal responses to places he has visited or imagined. The viewer is invited to travel with the artist, to feel and sense the memories, and to discover new ones.
About GCCA
Greenville Center for Creative Arts is a non-profit organization that aims to enrich the cultural fabric of the community through visual arts promotion, education, and inspiration. For more information, visit www.artcentergreenville.org, call 864-735-3948, or check out GCCA on Facebook (Greenville Center for Creative Arts) & Instagram (@artcentergvl).
by Greg | Sep 1, 2022 | News
Greenville, SC – Greenville Center for Creative Arts (GCCA) is excited to announce the opening of their Main Gallery exhibition, Narratives Ending In Separation. The exhibition features the work of acclaimed artist Linda McCune. The exhibition opens with a First Friday reception from 6:00 – 9:00 pm on Friday, October 7th 2022 and continues until November 23rd, 2022. The exhibition will also be open during the First Friday on November 4th.
In Narratives Ending in Separation, Linda McCune’s mixed media sculptures traverse emotional autobiographies that memorialize cherished family, childhood fears, and a young woman’s longing for children. These sculptures give the opportunity to remember and honor the importance of the everyday, of family. Her finely crafted structures are embedded with made and found objects to imbue her sculpture with an abstract spirituality and a ritual of symbolic details. She reminds us that all our past can be prophetic to our present.
Linda McCune
Linda Williams McCune’s home and continuing family ties to rural Tennessee greatly influence her multiple media sculptures and drawings constructed in her home studio in Greer, South Carolina. She has been featured in numerous exhibitions across the U.S. and internationally. Her work is in many collections including the South Carolina State Art Collection, Columbia Museum of Art, Hunter Museum of American Art, and the Asheville Museum of Art. Her work has been reviewed in a number of publications including, Atlanta Art Papers and the Artists and Critics Forum. McCune has won the SC State Artist Fellowship, the National NISOD Award, the Metropolitan Art Council’s Carl R. Blair Award for Commitment to Arts Education, Elon College’s Excellence in the Arts and Humanities Grant and the Metropolitan Arts Council Project Grant. She was honored by the SC Arts Commission’s 100 years 100 Artists ’Views from the Edge of the Century Project and as a founding board member of the Mountain Makin’s Festival in Morristown, TN, a Southeastern Tourism Society Top 20 and a New York Times Tennessee top festival. Linda McCune recently retired from Greenville Technical College’s Department of Visual Arts, as Academic Program Director and Lead Professor in art history, fine arts and art education. She enthusiastically maintains her studio practice and exhibition schedule.
About GCCA
Greenville Center for Creative Arts is a non-profit organization that aims to enrich the cultural fabric of the community through visual arts promotion, education, and inspiration. For more information, visit www.artcentergreenville.org, call 864-735-3948, or check out GCCA on Facebook (Greenville Center for Creative Arts) & Instagram (@artcentergvl).
by Greg | Aug 10, 2022 | News
Greenville, SC – Greenville Center for Creative Arts (GCCA) revealed the incoming class of the Brandon Fellowship at its Annual Showcase on August 5. The Fellowship is a 12-month program that aims to develop three emerging artists between the ages of 21 to 30 who represent the diversity of the Greenville visual arts community. Now in its eighth year, the program provides free studio space, a stipend for supplies, a supportive environment, mentorship, and art education, including professional development resources, to help these artists thrive in the next step of their education, career, or business.
“We’ve had such strong candidates apply for the Brandon Fellowship this year, representing the breadth of talents and perspectives of young Greenville artists,” says Kevin Kao, the chair of the Brandon Fellowship selection committee. “We’re so excited to present our new fellows and cannot wait to see the impact that they will have with GCCA as well as the greater Greenville community.”
Orlando Corona is a Greenville-based oil painter and printmaker, born in Mexico. His artwork is based on his Mexican culture and as a first-generation immigrant in the U.S. While only having 3 years of experience, he has been in several galleries since the age of 17 and has studied under several local artists. His favorite artists include Diego Rivera, a Mexican muralist; Posada, a printmaker; and Pablo Picasso. Orlando strives to create impactful art that can be shared with others. Art is his creative way of communicating his thoughts and speaking to the world.
A self-taught painter and mixed-media artist, Faith Hudgens grew up in Greenville and has worked professionally as a highly regarded tattoo artist since establishing her practice in 2017. Her paintings are vibrant, emotional, and layered with spirituality. She has participated in exhibitions at Greenville Technical College and the Commerce Club. Faith is an uplifter in her community and volunteers regularly with Miracle Hill Ministries hosting art classes for young girls in foster care. Faith has also hosted PRIDE events with Upstate Pride SC and donates art to organizations that support women and the LGBTQ+ community. Faith’s overarching goal is to cultivate positive change through her art and specifically, to use art as a platform to propel Greenville forward in unity, cultural diversity, and minority inclusion.
RaAmen (Rah-Mēn) Stallings Is an aspiring creative who is passionate about all forms of art. He is a graduate of both Greenville Senior High Academy and Greenville Technical College where he received an associate’s in Business Administration. Although he has worked professionally as a photographer since launching his business in 2020, RaAmen is now focused on developing his skills as a painter. He is committed to expanding his artistic practice and believes strongly in the power of art as a way to inspire and facilitate community and conversation.
This year’s Brandon Fellowship selection committee included chair Kevin Kao, sculptor and Assistant Professor of Art at Furman University; Danielle Fontaine, encaustic artist, and Brandon Fellowship Founder; Rhonda Rawlings, a GCCA board member and community director for Mill Village Ministries; Nick Burns, painter and mixed-media artist and alumnus of the Brandon Fellows class of 2020; Patricia DeLeon, painter and mixed-media artist; and Kara Bale, operations manager for GCCA who oversees the Fellowship program.
“I couldn’t be more excited about our new fellows,” says Kara Bale, who oversees the program at GCCA. “It was a very challenging selection process as we had so many talented and deserving applicants, but I feel the committee did an excellent job and selected three individuals who strongly reflect GCCA’s mission to enrich the cultural fabric of our community. Each has already used their art to grow community and further important conversations so it will be amazing to see what they accomplish within the supportive structure of the fellowship.”
Previous Brandon Fellows alumni have gone on to become full-time working artists, designers, participants in Artisphere and other festivals, graduate students, artists-in-residence, instructors, community muralists, published artists, grant recipients, and award winners.
An exhibition featuring the work of the 2021-22 Brandon Fellows, Kim Le, Sienna Patterson, and Terrell Washington is on display through Sept. 28 in GCCA’s Main Gallery. Kim Le’s work comes from the ugly, wounded, and abject parts of a young girl’s psyche, reappropriating the common language of cuteness that little girls use to cope with their pain to connect to the furious and wretched spirit of young girls and women everywhere who’ve been beaten down by the world around them. Through expressive imagery and journal entries, Sienna Patterson explores the concept of the fool’s journey through the lens of her personal experiences. Depiction the trials of self and the price that we pay to develop the ego to surpass the ego and to transcend the ego. Terrell Washington’s “Genesis: Omens and Decisions of Existence”, features Abrahamic beliefs and highlights the realness of prayer, our blessings and curses, human nature, while putting people of melanin at the center of it all. This exhibition can be viewed during GCCA’s open hours Tuesday-Friday from 9 a.m. – 5 PM and Saturday from 11 AM – 3 PM.
To learn more about the Brandon Fellowship, visit https://artcentergreenville.org/brandon-fellowship/.
About GCCA
Greenville Center for Creative Arts is a non-profit organization that aims to enrich the cultural fabric of the community through visual arts promotion, education, and inspiration. For more information, visit www.artcentergreenville.org, call 864-735-3948, or check out GCCA on Facebook (Greenville Center for Creative Arts) & Instagram (@artcentergvl).
by Greg | Jul 12, 2022 | News
Greenville, SC – Greenville Center for Creative Arts (GCCA) will hold its seventh Annual Showcase on Friday, August 5, from 6 – 9 pm at 101 Abney Street in the Village of West Greenville. The Annual Showcase is GCCA’s premiere event for artists and art lovers of all ages, featuring a new Main Gallery exhibition of local artists and current Brandon Fellows, a special exhibition of youth artwork created during GCCA’s Summer Art Camps, live artist demos promoting classes on the fall Art School schedule, visits with 25 in-house studio artists, and much more.
The Annual Showcase exhibition highlights over 100 GCCA members each year whose artwork embodies the talent and diversity of GCCA’s vibrant visual arts community. From contemporary paintings to functional ceramics and everything in between, there is something for everyone at the Annual Showcase exhibition in the Main Gallery.
The 2021-2022 Brandon Fellowship exhibition will also be on display with work by emerging artists Kim Le, Sienna Patterson, and Terrell Washington. Kim Le’s work comes from the ugly, wounded and abject parts of a young girl’s psyche, reappropriating the common language of cuteness that little girls use to cope with their pain to connect to the furious and wretched spirit of young girls and women everywhere who’ve been beaten down by the world around them. Through expressive imagery and journal entries, Sienna Patterson explores the concept of the fool’s journey through the lens of her personal experiences. Terrell Washington’s “Genesis: Omens and Decisions of Existence”, depicts the realness of prayer, our blessings and curses, human nature, all while highlighting people of melanin at the center of his work. In addition, after a competitive selection process, GCCA will announce the three new Brandon Fellows for the upcoming 2022-2023 program year.
This summer GCCA’s summer art camps introduced a variety of visual art mediums to over 150 campers. To culminate all the hard work completed by instructors and campers, the Summer Art Camp Showcase will present a collection of various artworks from campers ages 5-12 years old in the Gray Loft.
First Friday attendees can also attend in-person demos by GCCA instructors and learn more about the Fall Session offerings for the new Jewelry and Printmaking classes. There will be a free ReCraft family art activity, new Loft Gallery exhibitions by GCCA resident studio artists Mary Pauly and Hans-Peter Bolz, and the Greenville County Schools Winners Show will still be on display in the Community Gallery.
Visitors will also have the chance to meet GCCA’s new Development Director, Chelsea Rudisill. Chelsea comes to GCCA after many years of fundraising experience including work at the Peace Center and the Asheville Museum of Art.
After First Friday, the Annual Showcase exhibition will be open to visitors through September 28 on Tuesdays through Fridays from 9 am – 5 pm and Saturdays 11 am – 3 pm. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, call GCCA at 864-735-3948 or visit www.artcentergreenville.org.
About GCCA
Greenville Center for Creative Arts is a non-profit organization that aims to enrich the cultural fabric of the community through visual arts promotion, education, and inspiration. For more information, visit www.artcentergreenville.org, call 864-735-3948, or check out GCCA on Facebook (Greenville Center for Creative Arts) & Instagram (@artcentergvl).
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