Connect with local contemporary artist at City Gallery's upcoming lecture series

Image by City Gallery

The City of Charleston Office of Cultural Affairs, Charleston magazine and the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston School of the Arts present "Contemporary Charleston 2011: Under the Radar" at the City Gallery at Waterfront Park.

The exhibit showcases drawing, collage, painting, photography and installation works by local artists who deserve a closer look. 

From the 170 submissions, a unanimous decision was made to feature the following eight emerging artists: DH Cooper, Rebecca West Fraser, Nina Garner, Conrad Guevara, Greg Hart, Alan W. Jackson,Melinda Mead and Lauren Frances Moore.

Artist lectures are schedules for the following dates:

  • Saturday, July 2, at 5 p.m.: Rebecca West Fraser and Lauren Frances Moore
  • Saturday, July 9, at 5 p.m.: Conrad Guevara andMelinda Mead
  • Saturday, July 16, at 5 p.m.: Greg Hart and Alan W. Jackson
  • Saturday, July 23, at 5 p.m.: Nina Garner and DH Cooper

About the Artists:

DH CooperDH Cooper received a 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 and after her graduate studies, her exclusive use of still images expanded to incorporate performance, video, and fiber arts. This shift opened a new venue for her explorations into the domestic arena. Her works have been featured in numerous exhibitions, some of which have been at the Chicago Cultural Center, The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art inChicago, The New Orleans Museum of Art, Time and Space Limited,  Hudson NY, and The FAC Modern in Colorado.  Cooper 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 pursues her art career and teaches photography full time at the Art Institute of Charleston.  

Rebecca West FraserBorn and raised in Charleston, S.C., Fraser attended Buist Academy and the Academic Magnet High School. Upon graduating high school, she attended Alfred University in western New York and graduated Cum Lade with a BFA in 2010. While attending Alfred University, Fraser created a small gallery space called “Random Room Gallery” which is open to students, faculty and visiting artists. In 2009, Fraser interned as a printing assistant for Hand Graphics Studio in Santa Fe, N.M.Her work has been featured in the Turner Student Gallery, the Random Room Gallery, in BLUME 2010 at Club Pantheon, Artist’s Lock-in at Eye Level Art, Kulture Klash 2011 and in the one night Postcard Show: Wish you were here! at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art.

Nina Garner was born September 6, 1986 and grew up in various parts of theUnited States and Okinawa,Japan. In May of 2009 she graduated with a B.A from theCollege ofCharleston in Charleston, S.C., where she currently resides.

Conrad Guevara is a visual artist working in Charleston, S.C.  He received a B.A. from the College of Charleston in Studio Art in 2008. This fall Guevara will attend the San Francisco Art Institute for an MFA in painting. His recent exhibitions include “Flavor Cutz” at 10 Store House Row, a solo show presented by the North Charleston Cultural Arts Department and “ReOrientation IV” at Redux Contemporary Art Center.  He is currently the Artist in Residence at the Children's Museum of the Lowcountry.

Greg Hart lives in Charleston with his wife Janet and two Boston Terriers, Millie and Edgar.  From 2003 to 2008, Hart worked as a freelance illustrator with images appearing in The Washington Post, Utne Reader, USA Weekend, and Atlanta Magazine. After visiting Paris in 2009, most notably Musée D’Orsay and Musée Picasso, he shifted focus to painting and zeroed in on portrait abstractions.  Hart has always been interested in the visual arts with the Greenville County Fine Arts Center being one of his key, early influences.  His paintings are informed by the Abstract Expressionist Action Painters, The Fauves, Pop and Street Art.  Hart participated in his first group exhibition (“Plastic” at Eyedrum,Atlanta) in November 2010.

Alan W. JacksonOriginally from Savannah, Ga., he has lived in Charleston since 1979. He graduated from the University ofFlorida in 1975 and then worked in a series of architectural offices inSavannah, Beaufort, KiawahIsland andCharleston. A LEED accredited professional architect, he is a partner in the architecture firm McKellar & Associates located inMt. Pleasant, S.C. He has studied the Japanese martial art of Aikido since 1984 and currently teaches Aikido inMt.Pleasant where he lives with wife Pat.

Melinda MeadBorn and raised in Summerville,S.C., she came to photography while grieving the  death of her mother. Attracted to the act of capturing and collecting that which is about to be past, she is excited by the exquisite tenuousness of the present moment. Mead studied at the Center for Photography, the College of Charleston and Trident Technical College, and she has exhibited work at Outer Space, as well as in Re:Nude and Blume art shows.

Lauren Frances Moore grew up inAtlanta , GA with an odd enthusiasm for the beautiful, the unique, and the absurd. Though she entered the College of Charleston just four years ago as a student of business, it wasn’t long before she began to seek a creative outlet within the college’s well equipped and ever-inspiring sculpture studio. Of course, the urge to create was too strong to resist, and she soon chose to split her studies into two distinct, yet surprisingly complementary, majors, Business Administration and Studio Art. Lauren has since had a number of opportunities to exhibit her large-scale installations around town. In 2010, she was a part of the 1x1 StudentxFaculty exhibition at Redux Contemporary Art Center , where she currently teaches youth sculpture classes. She has been included in the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art’s Young Contemporaries Exhibition for the past four years, through which she has won a several prizes for her work, including “Best in Show” in 2010.  Last summer Lauren spent 9 weeks on an Intern Artist Fellowship at Franconia Sculpture Park , in rural Minnesota, and this coming Fall, Lauren will be moving to Washington DC to attend graduate school at the University of Maryland, where she will pursue an MFA in Sculpture.

The City Gallery at Waterfront park is located at 34 Prioleau Street in downtown Charleston.