Join us at a Round Table Discussion featuring four of the Biennial Part II artists, Lori Isom (Columbia), Jay Owens (Travelers Rest), Morgan East (North Charleston), and Jeff Summerel (Greenville). Owens will serve as moderating artist. This is the center’s eighth survey exhibition of work by contemporary South Carolina artists. Judges were Sade Ayorinde of Columbia, SC, Floyd Hall of College Park, GA and Deirdre Visser of San Francisco, CA. Selected artists are all current residents of South Carolina and represent a variety of media. Twelve artists are represented in each exhibition. Biennial Part II is on display from November 6 – December 21 and includes the work of Ada Goldfeld, Nina Rastgar, Donald Medley, George Wenzel, Emma Barns McClure, Patrick Mahoney, Sonya Diimmler, Nolan Wright, Jeff Summerel, Jay Owens, Lori Isom, and Morgan East.

More info on the Discussion Participants:

Lori Isom
Artist Statement
I make portraits using acrylic paint, charcoal and collage. I’m a storyteller, interested in the narrative possibilities of portraiture. I spent my twenties telling stories on stage through theater, and now I tell the stories of my subjects through my artwork. I want to capture the briefest moment in time and make it relatable to the viewer. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, but spent many summers alternating between Knights Hill, SC, my mother’s home, and my father’s home in Gastonia, NC. I feel drawn to depict the people that were part of my family, and I am deeply interested in telling Black stories of a bygone era. I inherited a treasure trove in photos from my parents as well as a favorite aunt. These have become the source material for my work.

Jay Owens
Artist Statement
I construct surreal scenes of everyday life in clay. Buildings, nature, and our built environment inspire ideas for forms. Drawing on paper is a place to record things and places I see. I actively manipulate shapes by tracing, flipping, and combining in 2 dimensions. I then use the working drawings to build 3-dimensional forms. My work challenges the viewer to consider how we navigate nature, consumerism, and domestic life in a constantly changing world. I make glazes using different clays, glasses, and stains. Having a deep understanding of how glaze works gives me the freedom to develop a palette of colors and surfaces unique to each piece. Ceramics has a long tradition of ancient techniques, but is also an expansive medium I use to create work that challenges traditional norms of painting and sculpture.

Morgan East
Artist Statement
Humans continually seek comfort and healing in nature, finding refuge in its simplicity and beauty. Whether floating down rivers, swimming in the ocean, or hiking through the wilderness, these natural interactions form the core of our mental well-being, offering a primal form of therapy that restores balance. Studies have shown that exposure to nature enhances focus, lowers stress, elevates mood, and fosters empathy. As our dependence on technology grows, our connection to the natural world fades, making this interaction more essential than ever.

Water has consistently served as a central theme in my artistic process, embodying my deep appreciation for this element that is both gentle and powerful. The organic lines of the female form, echoing the fluidity and movement found in water, inspire much of my latest work. My paintings often depict moments of tranquility in natural settings, creating a visual narrative that explores how these encounters help us overcome the obstacles, insecurities, and daily struggles of human existence.

Through my work, I capture the delicate balance between the familiar and the unexplored, blending realism with expressive mark-making. I utilize multiple tools, silicon brushes, brayer rollers, and spray bottles on a variety of surfaces to achieve this effect.

Jeff Summerel
Artist Statement
Jeff Sumerel’s artistic trajectory began unconventionally—following eight years as a nationally touring stand-up comedian, he revived his passion and experiences while studying at the San Francisco Art Institute. As a result, in 1992 he transitioned into a prolific multimedia artist that has since defied categorization. This grounding in absurdist theater, avant garde filmmaking, and audience engagement profoundly informs his public installations and site-specific works, which blend conceptual premises with an irreverent, often satirical sensibility. Drawing on natural environments, discarded materials, and
overlooked objects, Sumerel constructs works that are as philosophically probing as they are visually disarming.

Since 2015, Sumerel has collaborated closely with Lithuanian multimedia artist Goda Rupeikaite, whose refined visual language and immersive audio compositions have expanded the duo’s approach to spatial storytelling. Rupeikaite’s sensitivity to sonic atmosphere and narrative layering lends their joint work a multidimensional resonance— where sound is not an accompaniment, but a spatial and emotional architecture in its own right.

Together, they have developed a willingness to test the boundaries of audience expectation. Their projects often emerge from the speculative question—what if—and unfold through the activation of context: whether urban, rural, or institutional. These engagements, both subtle and bold, consistently challenge assumptions about what constitutes artistic material, form, or site.

Recognized as significant voices in contemporary Southern U.S. art, Sumerel and Rupeikaite’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally, including at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Vilnius Museum of Tolerance in Lithuania. Their collaborative practice invites curators to engage with themes of transience, humor, and embodied experience—where