“Breakout!”site-specific installationat Jepson Center, Telfair Museumsbyartist Amiri Geuka Farris, reclaimed material mixed media, 9 x 13 feet, 2020, image provided by the artist
Press Release
The Gibbes Museum of Art is honored to announce its 2022 class of Visiting Artists. The 2022 Visiting Artist program will feature 9 artists including Katy Mixon, Maria White, Sardine Press (Allison Koch and Leigh Sabisch), Jamele Wright, Sr., Clare Hu, Jonathan Rypkema, Amiri Geuka Farris and Nadia Stieglitz. As a part of their residency, artists will engage museum visitors through free, public studio hours during which guests will have the opportunity to learn about their artistic practice – from exploring gendered notions of space through three-dimensional objects to how an artist’s chosen medium impacts the environment. The diverse range of artmaking offers a look into mediums as varied as Georgia red clay to fragments of found materials to more traditional forms of printmaking, painting and quilting.
“The Visiting Artist series promotes creativity, introduces new art forms, provides perspective on larger community issues, encourages freedom of thought and connects with the broadest possible audience,” says Angela Mack, executive director of the Gibbes Museum of Art. “These artists will also have the opportunity to have their works exhibited in the Ruth and Bill Baker Art Sales Gallery and collaborate on exclusive products to be sold in the Museum Store.”
Katy Mixon, Session I: February 21 – April 3, 2022
Katy Mixon, born in Orangeburg, is a visual artist working in painting, sculpture, quilting and photography. She earned an MFA from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a B.A. from Davidson College. She is an alumna of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Mixon is a recipient of a Working Artist Grant and a Ruth and Harold Chenven Foundation Award. She was a finalist for a William and Dorothy Yeck Young Painters Award and a VCUarts Fountainhead Fellowship. Mixon was invited as an artist-in-residence to VCCA, VA; Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Neb.; The Hambidge Center, Ga.; AICAD Studio Practice Residency, N.Y.; and Byrdcliffe Art Colony, N.Y. Select exhibition venues include the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh; GreenHill Gallery, N.C.; the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, NC; Ackland Art Museum, N.C.; Spartanburg Art Museum, S.C.; Coker University, S.C.; A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, N.Y.; The Painting Center, New York; Target Gallery, Va.; Rubber Stamp Projects, Fla.; Allcott Gallery, N.C.; 701 Center for Contemporary Art, S.C.; among others.
Maria White, Session I: February 21 – April 3, 2022
Maria White is a Mexican American studio potter and independent filmmaker. White was born in Las Vegas, Nev. and raised in Summerville, S.C. White first learned to make pottery while earning her degree in Art from Winthrop University. She continued to focus on ceramics with scholarship and studio assistant opportunities at Penland School of Craft and Haystack Mountain School of Craft, then went on to apprentice with sculptor and inventor, Michael Sherrill. White began her professional ceramics career in Los Angeles where she spent over a decade creating ceramics for celebrated chefs, top interior designers and the sets of major motion pictures and television series. Her ceramics have earned the Award of Excellence from the American Craft Council and her pieces have been published and collected internationally. Outside of her ceramic work, White's independent films have won awards from top international film festivals. While living in California, she co-founded the Los Angeles Women's Film Collective to help empower women working across all filmmaking disciplines. White is a survivor of postpartum anxiety and depression and an advocate for maternal mental health. In 2019, she founded Mugs for Moms, an effort that brings makers together to help raise maternal mental health awareness and find support for moms and their families. White is the mother of two and lives in Charleston, with her family.
Sardine Press, Session II: May 2 – June 12, 2022
Leigh Sabisch graduated from College of Charleston with a double major in arts management and studio art and a minor in art history in 2017, where she met the printmaking technician, Allison Koch. Koch, also a graduate from College of Charleston, received a degree in English literature in 2011 and studio art in 2014. In 2019, the duo founded Sardine Press, the mission of which is to cram their love of printmaking and their satisfaction gained from teaching into a mid-sized RV. Together, the two artists have planned and executed printmaking fundraisers for the ACLU and Planned Parenthood as well as pop-up, hands-on printmaking events. In addition to their own respective studio practices, the two create collaborative works and have exhibited together.
Jamele Wright, Sr., Session II: May 2 – June 12, 2022
Born and raised in Ohio, at the age of 22 Jamele Wright, Sr. moved with his family to Atlanta. While raising a family, Wright produced art, jazz and poetry events throughout the city. Realizing that there were many young artists not being represented, he started a gallery called Neo Renaissance Art House. After curating the gallery for over a year, Wright was inspired to pursue his own artistic career. After a number of solo and group exhibitions, the artist graduated from Georgia State University with a B.A. in art history. He concentrated on African and African American contemporary art. Jamele Wright, Sr. graduated with an MFA from School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. He completed a fellowship at Project for Empty Spaces in Newark, N.J. as well as a residency at Hambidge Art Center, Rabun Gap, Ga. He currently maintains his practice in Atlanta.
Clare Hu, Session III: August 29 – October 9, 2022
Clare Hu is an artist and weaver currently based in Brooklyn. She completed her BFA with a focus in fiber and material studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and has received additional training in textiles from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in the Netherlands. Hu has shown widely in Chicago at No Nation Gallery, Gallery No One, Dfbrl8r and Sullivan Gallery, and has recently shown at the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn, and Dream Clinic Project Space in Columbus, Ohio. She is a past Hambidge Center fellow, and a recent resident at the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn.
Jonathan Rypkema, Session III: August 29 – October 9, 2022
Jonathan Michael Rypkema is a visual artist who lives and works in Charleston, S.C. He works with various mediums which include spray paint, acrylic and wood. He received his undergraduate degree from the College of Charleston in studio arts with a focus on sculpture. Coming from a primarily two-dimensional background, school is where he developed an interest in three-dimensional work along with the skill sets needed for those projects. Following his studies, Rypkema began to combine the different disciplines he had learned, creating shaped paintings that interacted with viewers on a physical level. In recent years, the artist continued along this path but has shifted his focus to the use of repurposed wood and scrap materials, bringing a spontaneous and adaptive quality to his practice.
Amiri Farris, Session IV: October 24 – December 4, 2022
Amiri Geuka Farris is a contemporary, multidisciplinary artist whose wide range of work encompasses painting, drawing, video, performance and installation. Farris received his MFA in painting, with his BFA in illustration and graphic design, from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Farris' academic appointments include Professor of Fine Arts Foundations and Graphic Design at Georgia Southern University, at the Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art and Professor of Fine Arts, at the University of South Carolina-Beaufort. Farris' work has been featured in more than 50 solo exhibitions and juried museum exhibitions across the country, including the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. and the Smithsonian.
Nadia Stieglitz, Session IV: October 24 – December 4, 2022
Nadia Stieglitz is a French-born ceramicist specializing in organic, abstract sculpture, working out of Studio Union in Charleston, S.C. From 2006 to 2014, she gained formal training in fine arts and photography through her studies at the Art Students League, the International Center of Photography and the School of Visual Arts. Since 2019, she has engaged in a self-taught ceramic sculpture practice, aided by two classes in hand building in Charleston, a workshop in Asheville, N.C., with Bandana Pottery, and another in the United Kingdom with James Oughtibridge and Rebecca Appleby. Since 2009, she has presented and sold paintings and ceramics to private buyers in Charleston and New York. In May 2021, Stieglitz was invited to show sculptures in her first public exhibit at Charleston's Dewberry Hotel, as well as at a private home collection in Mount Pleasant with two other artists. In 2022, the artist will be a summer resident at the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine.
For more information about the Visiting Artist series, visit www.gibbesmuseum.org.
