The Pawtrait Gallery and The Green Paw by Kelly Kopacka
The City of North Charleston’s Cultural Arts Department announced that concurrent solo exhibitions of painted illustrations by Kelly Kopacka (Johns Island) and paper and wood sculptures Flavia Lovatelli (Columbia) will be on display at Park Circle Gallery from July 3-27, 2024. The artists will host a free public reception at the gallery on Friday, July 5, from 5 pm to 7 pm. Admission is free.
DOGVILLE – Painting Illustrations by Kelly Kopacka
Charleston-based artist Kelly Kopacka presents Dogville, a joyful collection of mixed media works that imagines the infrastructure of a dog society. The exhibition will include both paintings of dog houses and wall-mounted dioramas created with thrifted and found materials. Kopacka has created everything one might expect to find in a vibrant, dog-led community, including a dog hospital, a dog art gallery, a haunted doghouse, and more. She describes her style as illustrative realism and identifies her influences as “in the vein of Joseph Cornell, with a dash of Louise Nevelson and Robert Rauschenberg, plus a whole lot of Richard Scarry.”
Kopacka holds an M.A. in Art History from University of Memphis and a B.A. in Art History from Georgia State University. Although her natural love of visual art led her to these studies, at the time she could not see herself as a “real” artist. “Pictures speak a thousand words, and artists skillfully wield their tools to articulate them,” says Kopacka, “but what if I have nothing terribly important to say? What if I want to create for the sake of creation, for fun, for pleasure?” Instead, she employed her understanding of visual art elements as a graphic designer for a corporation. When the pandemic hit, the sudden changes to her daily routine made something click. The time and solitude of the early shutdown days allowed her to pick up a paintbrush again and create art playfully and without judgement. Since then, she has followed her natural inclination to create whimsical, humorous art and eventually quit her corporate job to pursue freelance art and design. Learn more about the artist at www.kellykopacka.com.
White Anemone by Flavia Lovatelli
A Sculptural Exploration of Coral in Nature – Paper and Wood Sculptures by Flavia Lovatelli
Flavia Lovatelli is a sculptor living in Columbia, SC. Her exhibition, A Sculptural Exploration of Coral in Nature, features a collection of paper and wood sculptures that echo the organic shapes of coral. Her artwork is inspired by her lifelong love of the natural world. She has fond childhood memories of snorkeling in the Tyrrhenian, Mediterranean, and Adriatic Seas, and going on hikes with her family. Her relationship with nature heavily influences the materials she is drawn to using in her artwork. Even as a child, she was interested in creating artwork from sustainable materials. She recalls collecting things found on her expeditions and incorporating them into her crafts. As she matured as an artist, the primary material she found herself most attracted to was found paper, books, magazines, writing paper, notebooks, and so on. “Paper, my chosen material, embodies the paradoxical qualities that we see in nature: its fragility and durability, its strength and delicacy,” Lovatelli says. Her process creates sculptures that seem to grow organically, echoing the patterns of spirals and tendrils seen in coral, barnacles, and sea anemones.
Raised in Northern Italy by her Italian father and American mother, Flavia Lovatelli moved to the United States in 1979. She is a self-taught artist who works with sustainable materials. Her work has been displayed in many solo and group exhibitions including (2024) - 135th Anniversary Year of NAWA, Hollis Taggart Gallery, New York; (2023) - 701 CCA South Carolina Biennial, Columbia, SC; (2024-25) Shanghai International Paper Art Biennial, Guangzhou, China; Piccolo Spoleto Art Exhibition, Charleston, SC; and 36th Annual McNeese National Works on Paper, McNeese State University, Lake Charles, LA. Learn more about the artist at www.flavia-lovatelli.com.
The Park Circle Gallery is located at 4820 Jenkins Avenue in North Charleston. Admission is free and free street parking is available on Jenkins Avenue in front of the gallery, as well as on the adjacent streets and in parking lots close by. Gallery hours are 11:00am-6:00pm Wednesday-Friday, and Noon-4:00pm on Saturday. The gallery will be closed on Thursday, July 4, in observance of Independence Day. For more information about PCG, call 843-637-3565 or email culturalarts@northcharleston.
For information on other Cultural Arts programs and artist opportunities, visit the Arts & Culture section of the City’s website at www.northcharleston.org.
