With Mullen 2009 – 2013, 701 Center for Contemporary Art presents a recent body of work by veteran Columbia artist Philip Mullen. The exhibition will run from May 2 – June 16, 2013, and the opening reception for the exhibition will be Thursday, May 2, 7 – 9 p.m. The artist will present a gallery talk on Sunday, May 26, 2:00 p.m.

The core of Mullen 2009 – 2013 comes from the artist’s current exhibition Mullen 2009 – 2012 at the Burroughs and Chapin Art Museum in Myrtle Beach, S.C., which closes on April 25. The 701 CCA version of the exhibition will include the majority of work of the Burroughs and Chapin show plus several paintings that the artist completed this year.

Philip Mullen (b. 1942) possibly has exhibited more nationally than any artist currently living in South Carolina. The University of South Carolina distinguished professor emeritus’ 200-plus solo exhibitions include 14 at David Findlay Galleries in New York City and nine at Dubins Gallery in Los Angeles. Mullen has had an ongoing solo exhibition since 1994 at his hometown Columbia’s Koger Center for the Arts. In 1995, USC’s McKissick Museum organized a 35-year retrospective. Among Mullen’s group exhibitions are those at New York’s Whitney Museum and Brooklyn Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Art and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minn.

The Brooklyn Museum and Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., the Denver Art Museum and South Korea’s Sonje Museum of Contemporary Art have Mullen’s work in their permanent collections, as do museums throughout the South. His work has been covered by Arts Magazine, The Artist’s Magazine and Art in America.  The work also has appeared on the covers of multiple books, including four hardbacks published by Allyn and Bacon.

Mullen taught at the University of South Carolina from 1969 – 2000. He earned a Ph.D. from Ohio University in 1970. He holds an M.A. from the University of North Dakota and a B.A. from the University of Minnesota.

“Philip Mullen is among the veteran artists in South Carolina that continue to produce relevant work. Mullen does so in abundance after an already stellar career that spans more than four decades,” 701 CCA board chair Wim Roefs said.

The paintings in the exhibition focus on everyday interiors, at times taking a wider perspective while in other cases zooming in on details. They tend to be heavy in texture and layering, though remarkably serene, and allow the viewer to explore the process through which the artist arrived at the end result. While the paintings are of something, showing identifiable objects and scenes, they are heavily abstracted, which adds to their mysterious quality.

“”Mullen believes that the experiences around us can be profound, if we can learn to be quiet, still and mindful,” Columbia artist and critic Mary Bentz Gilkerson wrote in the catalogue for the Burroughs and Chapin exhibition. “It is with this counsel that the viewer is encouraged to experience this exhibition – with tranquility and an open mind.” What may appear simple at first, Gilkerson wrote, “will gradually reveal incredible richness and complexity.”

For further inquiries, contact info@701cca.org or call 701 CCA director Sheldon Paschal at (803) 319-9949.

Exhibition Period: May 2 – June 16, 2013

Artist’s Reception: Thursday, May 2, 7 – 9 pm

Reception Admission: members, free; non-members, $5 suggested donation

Philip Mullen Gallery Talk: Sunday, May 26, 2 pm.

701 CCA

701 Whaley St., second floor

Columbia, SC 29201

Contact Sheldon Paschal at director@701cca.org with any questions.

Buy tickets now: http://colaopenstudiosparty.eventbrite.com/

Cash, credit or check accepted at the door.

Cash bar with liquor, wine and beer, complimentary hors d’oeuvres by Linda Phillips Catering, and DJ Irv Thompson spinning tunes!

Thank you to our Preview Party Sponsors!

Schmoyer and Company, LLC

Sue Doran & Drew Brasher

For a full list of artists participating in Columbia Open Studios, March 23-24, 2013, find a printable guide and more, here:http://www.columbiaopenstudios.org/

Paschal is a Columbia native with a background in performing arts. She has worked as a members-relations executive at the Charleston, S.C., Metro Chamber of Commerce. Prior to that, she was in artistic development at, and an ensemble member of, the Wishbone Theatre Collective in Chicago, IL. Paschal is a graduate of Columbia’s A.C. Flora High School and of Clemson University, where the 27-year-old graduated cum laude with a BA in production studies in performing arts and a minor in communication studies. At Clemson, she was for almost two years a facility intern at the university’s Brooks Center for Performing Arts, working in various capacities.

“Sheldon brings the versatility to the job that we were looking for in our new director,” Roefs said. “Aside from running 701 CCA’s daily operations, including management and administration, we expect our new director to focus on membership and resource development, including fundraising, and marketing and public relations. Sheldon has experience both in dealing with the nuts-and-bolts of arts organizations and in development at the Charleston Chamber of Commerce, and so we think she fits the bill beautifully. That she’s from Columbia and well-connected in the community is a significant bonus.”

“I am very excited to be in this job at 701 CCA,” Paschal said. “It’s the kind of energetic, innovative contemporary arts organization that I was hoping to work for at some stage. It’s an organization that already has made an enormous difference in Columbia and South Carolina but that wants to grow and can grow, and I am confident I can help with that.”

“I want to be an arts advocate for 701 CCA and the city of Columbia,” Paschal continued, “also in part because I don’t want other young people to do what I tried to do: seeking that arts environment elsewhere while Columbia has the resources to be exactly what I was looking for. Columbia wants to be a cultural destination and it should be, and 701 CCA is a crucial part of the city fulfilling that potential.”

For more information, please contact Roefs at (803) 238-235 or wroefs@sc.rr.com or Paschal at (803) 319-9949 or director@701cca.org.

About 701 Center for Contemporary Art

701 CCA is a non-profit visual arts center that promotes understanding, appreciation and enjoyment of contemporary art, the creative process and the role of art and artists in the community. The center also encourages interaction between visual and other art forms.

701 CCA is located at 701 Whaley Street, 2nd Floor, Columbia, SC 29201.  During exhibitions, hours are Wed, 11–8; Thu-Fri, 11-5; Sat, 11-5; Sun, 1-5. For more information, visit www.701cca.org.

At the core of Cash Crop are 15 life-size sculptures of shackled people placed in boat- or coffin-like structures, with diagrams of captive, warehoused humans in Trans-Atlantic slave ships carved in wood on the back. The sculptures represent, Hayes says, “the 15 million human beings kidnapped and transported by sea during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.” Through these works and others in the exhibition, Durham, N.C., native Hayes invites the viewer into an emotional, physical and psychological space to confront past, present and future.

“During a printmaking class, I came across an image of a slave ship diagram,” says Hayes, who in 2010 received an MFA from Savannah College of Art (SCAD) in Atlanta. “The slave ship images resemble a sweat shop. Sweat shops in Third World countries are today’s modern slave ships. The exhibition draws parallels between the slave trade and the Third World sweatshops of today. It’s about supply and demand, supply and demand. The exhibition asks: what is the next cash crop?”

The 15 figure sculptures in exhibition are 4.5 – 8 feet tall. They are made of cement, fabric, steel and fire-treated wood. In addition to the figure sculptures, the exhibition includes hand-made steel chains connecting the sculptures; prints and drawings; a large, wall-mounted sculpture of a ship; and scores of wooden, fire treated boxes, 11 x 21 inches in size, containing cement casts of ship shapes, that will be installed as a wall.

“This is a powerful exhibition,” board chair Roefs said. “It’s physically and emotionally an imposing installation of objects and two-dimensional work. The rawness with which the sculptural pieces are executed adds to the gut-wrenching impact of the exhibition. This work is obviously not meant to relate comfort but suffering and abuse.”

Cash Crop, which originated in Hayes’ MFA thesis exhibition at SCAD, has traveled to the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Art + Culture in Charlotte, N.C., North Carolina Central University in Durham, Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C., and Mason Murer Fine Art Gallery in Atlanta, one of that city’s largest art galleries.

Hayes in 2006 received a BA in Visual Communication from North Carolina Central University, a historically black college. In 2007, he received a summer scholarship to take a ceramics class at The New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in Alfred, N.Y., one of the country’s premier ceramics programs. Hayes’ art was included in Young Talent From Atlanta, and exhibition at Rush Galleries in New York City, and in exhibitions at Atlanta’s Emory University and Space One Eleven in Montgomery, Ala.

Please attend a gallery talk with the artist March 10, 2013 at 701 CCA starting at 2 p.m.

For further inquiries, contact info@701cca.org or call 701 CCA director Sheldon Paschal at (803) 319-9949 or Wim Roefs at (803) 238-2351.

About 701 Center for Contemporary Art

701 CCA is a non-profit visual arts center that promotes understanding, appreciation and enjoyment of contemporary art, the creative process and the role of art and artists in the community. The center also encourages interaction between visual and other art forms.

701 CCA is located at 701 Whaley Street, 2nd Floor, Columbia, SC 29201.  During exhibitions, hours are Wed, 11–8; Thu-Fri, 11-5; Sat, 9-5; Sun, 1-5. For more information, visit www.701cca.org.

“Knowing our history allows us to successfully navigate our future. Cash Crop and ColumbiaSC63 empower young professionals with knowledge to continue to advance,” said Columbia Urban League Young Professionals President Justin Williams.
Join us this Thursday, from 6:00-8:00pm, at 701 CCA for this viewing.

Where The Veins Meet | 18″ x 18″

Christy Aitken Fine Art
2641 N. Beltline Blvd.
Columbia, SC, 29204 803.445.2187
christalynaitken@gmail.com
www.christyaitken.com
Wheelchair Accessible: No

Directions: From the State Capitol in downtown Columbia, take U.S. 1 (Gervais St.) east for approximately 2 miles and merge right onto Trenholm Rd. After about 1.5 miles, take a left onto N. Beltline Blvd. Drive 1.5 miles, crossing over Forest Dr. (at Verizon & Walgreens). After two long brick walls, studio is fourth house on left. Driveway before Oakview Dr.; park on Oakview Dr.

Between Two Lungs | 11″ x 14″

E. Alece Aitken Illustrations

2641 N. Beltline Blvd.
Columbia, SC, 29204
803.337.6720
e.alece.illustrations@gmail.com
www.ealece-illustrations.com

Wheelchair Accessible: No

Directions: From the State Capitol in downtown Columbia, take U.S. 1 (Gervais St.) east for approximately 2 miles and merge right onto Trenholm Rd. After about 1.5 miles, take a left onto N. Beltline Blvd. Drive 1.5 miles, crossing over Forest Dr. (at Verizon & Walgreens). After two long brick walls, studio is fourth house on left. Driveway before Oakview Dr.; park on Oakview Dr.

Rebecca | 12″

4630 Datura Rd.
Columbia, SC, 29205
803.331.9069
angelallenstudios@yahoo.com
www.angelallenstudios.com

Wheelchair Accessible: No

Directions: From the State Capitol in downtown Columbia, take U.S. 1 (Gervais St.) east for approximately 2 miles and merge right onto Trenholm Rd. After about 1.5 miles, take a right onto Beltline Blvd. Turn left onto Arbutus Dr. (first left after the light at Devereaux Rd.) and bear left at Datura Rd. The studio is down the driveway behind home.

Woman with Red Pillow | 13″ x 19″

Jeff Amberg Photography
Gallery at Ferguson Street
1017 Ferguson St.
Columbia, SC, 29201
803.254.5003
jeff@jeffamberg.com

www.organicabstracts.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/-Organic-Abstracts-Photography-by-Jeff-Amberg/398224486908587
Twitter: @jeffamberg

Wheelchair Accessible: Yes

Directions: From the State Capitol in downtown Columbia, take U.S. 1 (Gervais St.) west to Assembly St. Turn left on Assembly and go approximately one mile to Whaley St. Cross over Whaley and move into the far right lane. As Assembly bears around to the left, look for the yellow emergency flashing light that hangs over Assembly. That’s the corner of Ferguson and Assembly. Turn right on Ferguson St.; the studio is two blocks ahead on the right.