with spring just around the corner hbg is thrilled to open new exhibitions for jill lear and virginia scotchie. this is jill lear’s first exhibition at the gallery. we have always been huge admirers of her work and a few years ago had a conversation with her about traveling down south to see our magnificent trees in person. charlotte has always been known as the city of trees with it’s avenues of grand oaks and larger than life magnolias. to our surprise jill had yet to visit the south and was over the moon to have an exhibition at the gallery based on southern trees. she spent 3 weeks last spring exploring the area including excursions to both carolina coasts and savannah. she was especially taken by the trees at the duke mansion while staying there and fell in love with the ancient oaks on the golf course at the charlotte country club after dinner there one night. the resulting works from her travels are amazing and special to us. a big thank you to jill for jumping on board and commemorating our beautiful southern landscape in her paintings.
long time hbg artist virginia scotchie has once again dazzled us with her handmade ceramic work. her objects and spheres in a kaleidoscope of colors fill the gallery with joy. the influence of the vessel appeared in the form of spouts, handles and knobs added for decorative, non-functional purposes. virginia uses very basic tools. she hand builds most of her work, sometimes using a ceramic mold to press clay into as seen in her series of spheres. she favors rough surfaces, an effect achieved by using various scrapers and forks. the worn, crusty surfaces on many of the pieces are created to give a sense of how time acts to make and unmake a form.
jill lear is a painter whose primary subject and inspiration are trees in the landscape as a means of transcribing not only the experience of being in, and thinking about nature but also the way in which we process the world around us. jill’s large-scale works have been exhibited in san francisco, new york, seattle and austin. her work has been acquired by the permanent collections at one world trade center, ny, wright state university art museum dayton, oh as well as the philip isles collection, ny. jill trained formally at the new york studio school ny, ny and holds degrees from both southern methodist university in dallas, tx as well as the chambre syndicale of haute couture in paris, france.
jill lear in her studio
it starts with a single tree in the landscape: ancient, complex and witness to history. i assign it its latitude and longitude and the investigation begins; a mapping of the experience of being in and thinking about nature;
my latest body of work is called urban sprawl: trees in cities. i visit and record trees that are not only surviving but thriving in urban areas. i choose magnificent trees that reach out and embrace their environments with sprawling branches and intricate root systems. my work speaks to trees’ participation in our urban communities, sustaining themselves in their restricted environments while managing to “give back” to the community. according to the us forest service, trees in a community help reduce air and water pollution, store carbon, alter heating and cooling costs and even increase property values. trees can also strengthen social connections and are associated with reduced crime rates.
they are essential to our physical and emotional well-being. we need these trees more than they need us. the more we learn about them the more they reveal.
my challenge is to transcribe the experience of being in front of a particular tree, in a particular place. proportion, increment and the space between things are at the forefront of the investigation. the process itself consists of using charcoal, acrylic, watercolor, mulberry and lokta paper and washi tape to reflect light and movement, positive forms and negative spaces...creating portraits of these ancient trees, entire landscapes in their roots and universes between their branches.
these trees are not just my subject matter, they are my inspiration.
it is my intention to make portraits of as many of these extraordinary creatures as i can during my lifetime. to record them before they all disappear...
-jill lear
virginia scotchie is a ceramic artist and area head of ceramics at the university of south carolina in columbia, south carolina. she holds a bfa in ceramics from unc-chapel hill and in 1985 completed her master of fine arts at alfred university in new york.
virginia exhibits her work extensively throughout the united states and abroad, and has received numerous awards including the sydney meyer fund International ceramics premiere award from the shepparton museum in victoria, australia. she has lectured internationally on her work and been an artist in residence in taiwan, italy, australia and the netherlands. her clay forms reside in many public and private collections and reviews about her work appear in prestigious ceramic publications.
virginia scotchie
recent work has dealt with the relationships of whole forms to that of their components. the act of taking apart and putting back together has contributed to the accumulation of a personal library of fragmented images. my current interest is in the exploration of new forms derived from rearranging fragments of disparate dissected objects.
with this new body of work, i have continued my on-going visual investigation of man-made and natural objects. usually these consist of small things; ordinary in many ways, but possessing a visual quirkiness that pulls me to them. in some cases, i am not familiar with the particular purpose, function or origin of the original object. often this lack of information allows me to see the object in a clearer light.
in some of the pieces, i have "borrowed" fragments of personal objects that have been passed on to me from a family member. usually these are things that have only sentimental value: an old pipe of my fathers, a funnel from my mother’s kitchen an old bulb from the family christmas tree. a recent object that falls into this category is a handmade wooden tool that was fashioned by my Italian grandfather to plant his garden. slender and pointed with a stump of a side handle this small tool fit the hand of my grandfather and served him well. for me it not only holds visual intrigue but also a connection to my memory of him and the things he loved.
the worn, crusty surfaces on many of the pieces are created to give a sense of how time acts to make and unmake a form. this process can be seen in both natural and manmade objects.
while drawn from specific sources of interpretation, the work in this exhibit is primarily abstract and formal. form, surface and color take precedent over any perceived emotional content. while the work may trigger a visual memory of familiar objects, the viewer is encouraged to have a range of interpretations.
-virginia scotchie
kiki slaughter, emma childs + virginia scotchie
john folsom + david kroll
sarah helser, selena beaudry + herb jackson
all available work by each artist can be viewed on our website under their individual tabs including sizing + pricing. hidell brooks gallery is by appointment. please call the gallery if you have any further questions.