Press Release
The City of North Charleston's Cultural Arts Department is pleased to announce that concurrent solo exhibitions of photography by Dan Jones (Charleston, SC) and ceramic sculpture by Saila Milja-Smyly (Mount Pleasant, SC) will be on display at Park Circle Gallery from February 1-25, 2023. A free reception hosted by the artists will be held at the gallery on Friday, February 3, from 5:00-7:00pm. The public is invited to attend.
Found Wandering – Photography by Dan Jones
In his exhibit, Found Wandering, Charleston photographer Dan Jones presents images that highlight the art surrounding us in our everyday lives. Jones creates by venturing out to find line, form, texture, and color that come together as a cohesive whole, mostly in manmade materials but also in nature. He does not arrange his subjects and rarely moves any objects in the scenes he photographs, preferring to capture the art as it is in the world. “I see art everywhere every day, in small details and larger patterns everywhere I go,” he explains. “Looking at the world this way has played a large part in my development as a photographer.”
Dan P. Jones is a 25-year member of the Cinematographer’s Guild and has been steadily putting more and more time into his still photography work, particularly over the last ten years. Influenced by photographers such as Andreas Gursky, William Eaggleston, and Andre Kertesz, he works primarily in found objects and situations, industrial/architectural detail, as well as documentary and street photography. Jones is currently working on multiple series, including Rural South Carolina, Curbside, Folly Beach, Suburban Lawn, Urban Street, Close on the Ground, and several others. Learn more about the artist at djonesphotos.com.
Cultivating Clay – Ceramic Sculpture by Saila Milja-Smyly
Cultivating Clay: Ceramic Sculpture by Saila Milja-Smyly features a collection of 20 single-fired stoneware ceramic pieces by Mount Pleasant-based artist Saila Milja-Smyly. Inspired by botanical forms and textures that might look as if grown in or shaped by nature, Milja-Smyly's designs reflect an interplay of the minimalist visual traditions of her Nordic home of origin and the rich natural expression of the South Carolina Lowcountry. The intent of her work is to show, through the conventional form of botanical sculpture, how the boundaries of the ceramic medium can be pushed further. “Driven by my curiosity for cultivating new approaches to manipulating stoneware clay and glazes, I seek to explore the technical boundaries of these materials,” she explains. “This means that I have made many of these sculptures more than once, first being a bit too optimistic with my technique and then working to refine the process to enable forms that clay is capable of achieving.”
Saila Milja-Smyly is an independent studio ceramicist and owner of Earthenly LLC ceramics company and brand since 2011. She is a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA), Lowcountry Ceramics Artists, Tri State Sculptors Association, and International Sculpture Center and her work has been featured in numerous juried and group exhibitions throughout the Carolinas. Current gallery representation includes the South Carolina Artisans Center (Walterboro, SC), Keepsakes at Brookgreen Gardens (Murrells Inlet, SC), Maye River Gallery (Bluffton, SC), Old Charleston Trading Company (Johns Island, SC), and Wynsum Antiques & Interiors (Charleston, SC). View the artist's work on Instagram @EarthenlyLLC.
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. For more information about PCG, call 843-637-3565 or email culturalarts@northcharleston.org. For information on other Cultural Arts programs and artist opportunities, visit the Arts & Culture section of the City's website at www.northcharleston.org.
