Construction Crew III: December 7- 18, 2007

if ART presents at

Gallery 80808/Vista Studios

808 Lady St., Columbia, S.C.

C o n s t r u c t i o n C r e w III:

STEVEN CHAPP – JEFF DONOVAN

JANET ORSELLI – EDWARD RICE

Dec. 7 – 18, 2007

Artists’ Reception: Friday, Dec. 7, 5 – 10 p.m.

Opening Hours:

Saturdays, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Sundays, 1 – 5 p.m.

Weekdays, 11 a.m. – 7 p.m. and by appointment

For its holiday exhibition at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios in Columbia, S.C., if ART presents Construction Crew III, a group exhibition with work by South Carolina artists Steven Chapp, Jeff Donovan, Janet Orselli and Edward Rice. Like the first two if ART Construction Crew exhibitions in December 2005 and 2006, the show consists of two-dimensional and three-dimensional art that has strong constructional or architectural characteristics. The exhibition opens Friday, Dec. 7, with a reception from 5 –10 p.m. and runs through Dec. 18. Opening hours are weekdays, 11 a.m. – 7 p.m., Saturdays, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m., and Sundays 1 ­ – 5 p.m. Chapp, Donovan, Orselli and Rice are represented by if ART Gallery, 1223 Lincoln St., (803) 238-2351, where additional works of art by all four artists will be on view.

Chapp will be showing monotypes, intaglio prints, drawings and paintings from the 1980s through last week. Donovan will present several major new ceramic sculptures. Orselli will show reconstructed and reconfigured old baby-carriages-turned-art-objects. Among the paintings Rice will be showing is a new series of barn paintings, in which the same barn structure is painted a dozen times in different colors.

Easley, S.C., native Steven Chapp (b. 1952) is a native of Kansas City, MO. He holds an MFA in printmaking and drawing from Clemson University and a BFA from Appalachian State University. He has shown in galleries and museums throughout the region, including the Greenville County (S.C.) Museum of Art, the Burroughs and Chapin Museum in Myrtle Beach, S.C. and the Pickens County (S.C.) Museum of Art and History. He worked on two projects with artists Christo and Jean Claude, in Kansas City in 1978 and Key Biscayne, Fla., in 1983.

Jeff Donovan (b. 1957) has been a fixture on the Columbia, S.C., art scene for many years. The painter and ceramic sculptor was born in Millford, Del., and studied at the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, Fla., and the Penland School of Crafts in Penland, N.C. Donovan has exhibited widely throughout South and North Carolina. He is represented in the Mark B. Coplan Collection of South Carolina Art, the prominent ceramic sculpture collection of Ron Porter and Joe Price in Columbia and in the collection of Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina. Donovan also works at ReNewell Fine Art Conservation in Columbia.

Janet Orselli (b. 1954) was born in Columbia, S.C., where she lived until November 2007, when she moved to Mill Spring, N.C. In 1976, she graduated from Clemson Unversity with a degree in psychology. In the 1990s she gradually switched careers from the field of mental health to art. While establishing herself as an artist, she earned an M.F.A. from Clemson in 2001. She was selected for the 2001 and 2004 South Carolina Triennial exhibitions as well as the 2004 traveling exhibition “South Carolina Birds: A Fine Arts Exhibition.” Earlier this year, Orselli has a solo show at O.K. Harris Gallery in New York City. Orselli has done large installations at the Gibbes Museum in Charleston, S.C., the Burroughs & Chapin Museum in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C. Orselli has received several residencies and fellowships, including at Anderson Ranch in Colorado and in Kaiserslautern, Germany. She is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Fellowship.

North Augusta, S.C., native Edward Rice (b. 1953) lives in Augusta, Ga. He is one of the Southeast’s most prominent contemporary painters. Rice’s solo exhibitions include those at the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, S.C., the Greenville County (S.C.) Museum of Art, the Chattahoochee Valley Art Museum in La Grange, Ga., and the McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C. Rice also was represented in The Story of the South: Art and Culture, 1890 – 2003, the inaugural exhibition at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans. “Edward Rice: Architectural Works, 1978-1998” was published by the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art in Augusta, Ga., and “Edward Rice: Recent Monotypes,” by the Morris Museum of Art in 2003.

For more information, please contact if ART Gallery owner, Wim Roefs at (803) 238-2351 or wroefs@sc.rr.com

Thread Counting: Jeff Donovan

Thread Counting, a work in progress.

All works of art by Jeff Donovan are available at if ART Gallery, 1223 Lincoln Street, Columbia, SC.

Contact Wim Roefs at if-art-gallery@sc.twcbc.com or (803) 255-0068/(803) 238-2351.

Donovan & Novo Exhibitions

if ART Gallery will present two simultaneous solo exhibitions, December 9 – 20, 2011, at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios, 808 Lady Street, Columbia, SC: Jeff Donovan: Gray Matters and Marcelo Novo: Materia Gris. The artist’s reception is Friday, November 9, 5 – 9 p.m.            

            Donovan will present new paintings and Novo, new paintings and prints created since his move last year from Columbia to Washington, DC. In both cases, many of new works by the artists are dominated by shades of gray as well as black and white, though certain works will have a wider range of colors. The titles for the exhibitions refer to both the dominance of grays in many of the work and to matters of the brain. It is, after all, the quirky workings of Donovan’s and Novo’s brains that provide an impetus for their typically unusual imagery with a Surrealist or Magic Realist bend. 

            Novo’s exhibition will be his first one in Columbia since his move in September 2011, and as such represents his return to Columbia. Before his move, Novo had a very successful studio sale. Donovan’s exhibition will be his third solo show since January 2010, when if ART organized a 30-year retrospective of his work at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios. The retrospective was followed by a smaller post-retrospective exhibition at if ART Gallery in August, 2010. Both exhibitions set sales records for Donovan, who in 2010 had his best year to date in terms of sales.

            Since his move to DC, Novo (b. 1963) has had exhibitions in two DC-area restaurants. He currently is in an exhibition of Argentine art in the Argentine embassy in DC, where he will open a solo exhibition on November 30. He also was part of a Day of the Dead exhibition at the Torpedo Factory in Arlington, Va. Novo has produced a series of prints at the Lee Arts Center in Arlington, Va., and took a studio at the Columbia Pike Artists Studios in Arlington.

            Buenos Aires native Novo in 1992 moved from Argentina to Columbia, S.C. , where he quickly established himself as on of the areas most prominent artist through scores of solo and group exhibitions in the city.  Novo also has been in dozens of exhibitions along the East Coast, including a show at New York City’s Cinque Gallery. Novo’s 10-year retrospective was at the Sumter (S.C.) Gallery of Art in 2003. In April – May, 2008, “Marcelo Novo: Buenos Aires/Columbia, SC, 1985-1994” was at if ART Gallery.  Novo will be included in the book 100 Southern Artists, to be published in 2012. The book is an anthology of 100 artists from South and North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Virginia and West Virginia.

            Donovan (b.  1957), too, will be in 100 Southern Artists, which altogether will include 20 artists from if ART Gallery. Donovan has been on the Columbia art scene for three decades. He has exhibited widely and often throughout the Carolinas. The Columbia Museum of Art in 2009 acquired Donovan’s sculpture Dream Boater. Donovan was born in Millford, Del. He studied at the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, Fla., and the Penland School of Crafts in Penland, N.C., where he studied with Christina Cordova.