Artists Collective | Spartanburg will hold its third Annual Juried Exhibition to showcase the diversity of works within a four-state region Sept. 14 through Oct. 23, 2021. An awards ceremony is set for 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 2.
Artists from South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee submitted works for judging for inclusion in the exhibition. Selected works and artists will be announced following final judging Sept. 13 by Mary Erickson, a North Carolina and Florida painter, and Denise C. Woodward-Detrich, director of the Lee Gallery at Clemson University.
The exhibition will take place in the 2,000-square-foot Solomon Gallery at Artists Collective | Spartanburg facility at 578 W. Main St.
Artists Collective | Spartanburg is the only studio art collective in Spartanburg County, and art is produced and displayed throughout its 20,000-square-foot building. The exhibitions, workshops, performances and educational opportunities, along with artists’ studios, create a unique environment, a one-of-a-kind facility housing individuals who share a common creative consciousness. The nonprofit organization has 32 studios and more than 50 member artists. Visitors from across the region and beyond visit the Collective during major exhibitions.
Exhibition judge Erickson grew up sketching the beaches of Long Island Sound and sold her first painting at the age of 13. She studied at the University of Bridgeport and Sacred Heart University in Connecticut. She began painting professionally in 1993.
Preferring to work on location – in the tradition of French impressionists – Erickson travels extensively, creating field studies (plein air), then returns to the studio to produce large paintings using the visual knowledge and critical information gathered in the field. Painting tours have taken her to Spain, Guatemala, Argentina, Ireland and throughout the United States.
Woodward-Detrich’s creative research investigates the relationship between the defined parameters of functional objects and the interpretive aspects of visual and tactile memory. Her investigation into function is positioned on the visceral experience of touch, on the relationship between form, surface and function and on the layered memories gained through the accumulated experience of using utilitarian forms.
Before joining Clemson University, Woodward-Detrich served as a master instructor at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities. She received her MFA in ceramics at the New York College of Ceramics at Alfred University and has maintained an active exhibitions record having been invited to participate in many national exhibitions.
