Jurors & Curators
“As jurors, we collectively focused on images that purposely sought to distance itself from the ordinary by presenting a contemporary approach to art that exists in the Lowcountry. Commercially viable endeavors have come to define the Charleston art community and makes it difficult to showcase alternative perspectives. Walk Gallery’s daring storefront project can serve as counterweight; balancing the commonplace with the courageous.” ~ Colin Quashie
Jurors’ Biographies:
Colin Quashie —
Colin Quashie investigates serious cultural, social, and political ideas and issues, with sometimes raucous, sometime genial, tongue-in-cheek humor. On occasion, he addresses cultural issues using witty, scathing sarcasm intended to spark popular debate and discussion among his viewing audience. Functioning through the use of positive “social” anger, fed by his frustration with the vision of the masses, his works often play upon various popular stereotypes and ridicule irrational cultural assumptions in order to trigger an awareness of our personal limits in understanding each other’s daily life experiences.
www.quashie.com
John Hull —
John Hull received a B.A. from Yale University in 1977 and an M.F.A. from the University of Illinois, Urbana – Champaign in 1981.
His work has been exhibited nationally since 1981. He has had solo exhibitions at Tatischeff Gallery, the New Museum of Contemporary Art and Grace Borgenicht Gallery all in New York City; the Denver Art Museum, Plus Gallery and Ron Judish Fine Arts all in Denver, CO; Kohn-Turner Gallery, Los Angeles, LA; the J.B. Speed Museum, Louisville, KY; the Edwin A. Ulrich Museum and the Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, KS; The Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT; and Nancy Lurie Gallery, Chicago, IL. Group exhibitions include “The 1980’s: A New Generation”, the Metropolitan Museum of Art; “The Artist at Ringside”, The Butler Museum of American Art; “Romance and Irony”, National Gallery of New Zealand; “The Figure: Another Side of Modernism”, the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art; and “The 179th Annual Invitational Exhibition of American, Art”, the National Academy of Design.
His work may be found in public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Israel Museum, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Edwin A. Ulrich Museum, The Yellowstone Art Museum, The Greenville County Art Museum, and the Yale University Art Gallery.
Mr. Hull has received numerous awards, including four National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists Fellowships, a Maryland Arts Council Visual Artist Fellowship, the Thomas Benedict Clarke Prize for Painting in 2004 from the National Academy of Design, the 2000 Researcher of the Year at University of Colorado at Denver, three Researcher of the Year Awards from the College of Arts and Media at UCD, and the Achievement Award for Acrylic Painting in 1995 from American Artist Magazine.
His work has been reviewed critically in the New York Times, Art In America, Art Forum, Arts Magazine, The New Art Examiner, Modern Painters and the New Yorker. In addition his work has been reproduced in The Art of Drawing by Bernard Chaet, Baseball, the National Pastime in Art and Literature, A Creative Legacy, A History of the National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Program, Baseball: A Treasury of Art and Literature, as well as numerous exhibition catalogues.
From 1986-87 Mr. Hull was an Instructor in Painting and Drawing at Augustana College in Rock Island, IL. From 1987-97 he was an Associate Professor of Painting and Printmaking at Yale University and from 1997-07 was a Professor of Painting and Drawing at the University of Colorado at Denver. Currently Mr. Hull is a Professor of Painting and Chair of the Studio Art Department at the College of Charleston.
www.johnhullpaintings.com
Sara J. Ferguson —
Venturing from Chicago, Illinois to Charleston, South Carolina, Sara Ferguson has been living and working as an artist and curator in the lowcounty area since 2005. While in Chicago she earned a Masters in Fine Art with a concentration in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. She also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2003 and received her Bachelors in Fine Art from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2003, studying Sculpture. She has curated a number of shows in Richmond, Virginia and Chicago, Illinois.
She is interested in the dynamics of the body, the way gaining and losing weight, is a form of making and process. Intrigued by our culture’s obsession with dieting in order to build the perfect “sculpture”. She examines how the body fits into its skin, how our skin holds the body together, its folds, curves and edges. She has shown her work nationally and internationally.
Curators’ Biographies:
Donna Hurt —
In 2003, after working in the commercial photographic industry and maintaining an artistic career for many years, Donna returned to school to receive her MFA from The School of the Art Institute in Chicago. Upon graduating in 2005 she received an MFA fellowship award for her video thesis project. During her graduate studies her exclusive use of still images expanded to incorporate performance and video. This shift opened a new venue for her explorations into the domestic arena, and the human body.
Donna’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions over the years.
Her work has been shown at the Chicago Cultural Center, Gallery 2, and the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in Chicago, IL. In New Orleans, LA her work has been exhibited at the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Contemporary Arts Center, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, and the University of New Orleans Fine Arts Gallery.
In 2008 her show, No Body Home that captured New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina was featured in the inaugural opening at the Art Institute of Charleston in Charleston SC. Pieces from the show traveled to The New Orleans Museum of Art and The FAC Modern in Colorado, Wellington B. Gray Gallery, Greenville, NC, and Time and Space Limited, Hudson NY.
Donna moved to Charleston in 2006 to serve has Creative Strategist and In House Coordinator for “Evoking History/ Places with a Future” a project through Spoleto Festival USA, Currently she is professor of Photography at the Art Institute of Charleston.
www.donnahurt.com
Karen Ann Myers —
I was born and raised in Grand Rapids, MI. I graduated from high school with an AP portfolio in painting and in 2002 I began studio art classes at Michigan State University. I had a triple major in college, BFA in Art Education, Graphic Design and Painting, and after graduating and completing student teaching in a public school in the suburbs of Lansing, MI, I realized that I missed painting. All I wanted to do was paint. I worked as a Graphic Designer at Publicom Inc. in East Lansing, MI three days a week, painting at night and on the weekends.
In 2006 I was accepted to Boston University’s graduate painting program. During my time in Boston, I focused primarily on my painting, but I also expended a great deal of energy striving to become an active member of the local art community. I am a co-founder of the first Boston Young Contemporaries Exhibition which took place the summer of 6/07-7/07, and has continued to be an annual exhibition at the 808 Commonwealth Gallery. The exhibition included work from twelve MFA programs in New England.
Now, as the Executive Director at Redux Contemporary Art Center I am responsible for maintaining, overseeing and developing the following Redux Programs: Exhibitions/Curating, Public Relations, Artist in Residence Program, Facility Maintenance, General Office, Website and Internet presence, Accounting/Fundraising, Redux Non-Profit Status, Gallery, Film Screenings/Lectures and Education.
My paintings and prints exist nationally in private collections and have most recently been exhibited at the Robert Steele Gallery in NY, NY, at the Commonwealth Gallery in Boston, MA and at the Katzen Arts Center in Washington, DC.
www.karenannmyers.com
Sara J. Ferguson —
Venturing from Chicago, Illinois to Charleston, South Carolina, Sara Ferguson has been living and working as an artist and curator in the low county area since 2005. While in Chicago she earned a Masters in Fine Art with a concentration in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. She also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2003 and received her Bachelors in Fine Art from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2003, studying Sculpture. She has curated a number of shows in Richmond, Virginia and Chicago, Illinois.
She is interested in the dynamics of the body, the way gaining and losing weight, is a form of making and process. Intrigued by our culture’s obsession with dieting in order to build the perfect “sculpture”. She examines how the body fits into its skin, how our skin holds the body together, its folds, curves and edges. She has shown her work nationally and internationally.