Elder Gallery
presents

Nothing Could Be Finer

April 6 - 30, 2007

Many exceptional artists call North and South Carolina home. During the month of April Elder Gallery will feature paintings and sculpture by nine Carolina artists who exemplify excellence through their work. Most have achieved a high level of recognition on a national level and are included in numerous public and private art collections.

Nothing Could Be Finer will open at Elder Gallery with an artist reception at 6:00 p.m. on Friday, April 6, 2007. The following artists have created new work for the exhibition: Carl Blair, Stephen Chesley, Richard Conn, Claire Miller Hopkins, Jill Jones, Juan Logan, Philip Mullen, Karen Powell and Alex Powers. Artists included in the exhibition were chosen based upon their unique style and level of achievement in their field.

Philip Mullen’s artwork was included in The Whitney Museum’s Biennial of Contemporary Art; The Smithsonian Traveling Show for Contemporary American Drawing V; San Francisco Museum of Art National Drawing Exhibition; and other national exhibitions. His work is included in the collections of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; The Brooklyn Museum; The Sonje Museum of Contemporary Art (South Korea); and several other national and regional museums.

Alex Powers is included in the collections of The Montgomery Museum of Fine Art; The Brooklyn Museum of Art; The Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis; The Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis; The Bass Museum of Art, Miami; and The South Carolina State Museum. Powers is known for his workshops which are conducted across the nation each year.

Carl Blair has shown in more than one hundred museums, galleries and universities and was awarded The 2005 Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Award for Lifetime Achievement. He has served as chairman of the South Carolina Arts Commission and has been published in numerous regional and national publications.

Spartanburg artist Claire Miller Hopkins has served as a teacher of drawing and painting for 25 years. She is a workshop instructor, Juror, and Artist in Residence for The South Carolina Art Commission. Hopkins is a Master Pastelist with the Pastel Society of America, a member of the Knickerbocker Artists, Accorded “Distinguished Pastelist” designation at Pastel Society of the West Coast, and has been featured in numerous national publications.

Juan Logan’s work has been featured in over 250 solo and group exhibitions across the country including the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, the Carnegie Institute, The Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Greenville County Museum of Art. Logan’s work is included in over sixty corporate and public collections including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, the Museum of African American Art of Los Angeles and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

In order to further develop her knowledge of bronze casting Karen Powell apprenticed at the Green Mountain Fine Arts Foundry in Crowley, Texas. In 1993 she took a year’s leave from her university position at The University of Texas, Tyler, to attend the Berllanderi Sculpture Workshop near Cardiff, Wales. While there she was featured on BBC television and radio for her installation at Cardiff Bay for a piece entitled The Voyage.” Powell’s exhibitions have ranged from the United States to Wales and Italy. Her works are in private and corporate collections throughout the United States. She is also included in collections in Wales, Canada and Belgium.

Stephen Chesley’s work is in the collections of BellSouth, Carolina First Bank, Columbia Museum of Art, Erskine College, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, National Bank of South Carolina, Savannah College of Art & Design, State of South Carolina Art Collection, and others. He is a modern tonalist painter yet credits diverse artists such as Inness, Hopper, Pollack, Rembrandt, & Seurat as influences in his work. His paintings often depict the fleeting light of dawn & dusk, combined with primordial elements such as water, wind, and fire.

Jill Jones left the journalism business to follow her dreams to become a full-time artist. Her work has won numerous awards to include Best of Show, Anderson County 27th Annual Juried Show; Best of Show, Annual Juried Exhibition, Converse College; and Best of Show, Artists’ Guild of Spartanburg Annual Juried Exhibition. She is included in private and corporate collections throughout the southeast.

Richard Conn’s paintings of the southern landscape have won him recognition as one of the Carolinas’ most accomplished landscape painters. The subjects of his paintings are rural and urban landscapes which seem to be quickly disappearing from the south. After discovering a love for sculpture Conn studied at The Pendland School and has recently created a number of metal sculptures. The exhibition at Elder Gallery will feature both his paintings and sculpture.

Nothing Could Be Finer will be on exhibition through April 30, 2007 at Elder Gallery.