North Charleston City Gallery announces August exhibit, artist reception

"Watching You" by Samantha Meeker
"Hamilton Hill" by Elizabeth Roberts McFalls

The City of North Charleston’s Cultural Arts Department is pleased to announce that works by Elizabeth Roberts McFalls and Samantha Meeker will be on exhibit at the North Charleston City Gallery during the month of August.

Elizabeth Roberts McFalls uses historical photographs of the rural southeast as a reference and departure point for her pen and ink drawings and lithographs. The pieces in her exhibit, titled At Rest, reflect on the ideas of family, community, and heartbreak expressed in the photographs, while also confronting issues like mortality, sacrifice, and false sentimentality. “Revealing, concealing, and reinventing truths is central to my art making process,” she explains. “In my drawings and prints I question how we categorize ourselves and relate to one another through a veil of romanticized history.”

McFalls has exhibited in a number of group and solo exhibitions both regionally and nationally. She has also given several artist lectures at colleges and universities throughout the country. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at Columbus State University in Columbus, GA. For more information on the artist and her work, visit www.roberts-mcfalls.com.

Also on exhibit at the gallery are works by Samantha Meeker. Her exhibition, Lovers & Fighters, features a combination of two sets of figurative oil paintings. The Lovers series addresses the idea of what men will do for women in the name of love, such as enduring great humiliation, pain, and sacrifice. The Fighters series focuses on struggle and conflict.  The pieces, which depict fighters in a ring, were created at a time when the artist was battling with many aspects of her life, including family, college, and learning to paint. “The scenes of the fighters are all representative of emotions I was feeling while undergoing this life balance,” she explains.

 Meeker received a BFA in Painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2009. Her work is currently being shown in Atlanta and has recently been juried into two national exhibitions. For more information on the artist and her paintings, visit www.samanthameeker.com.

Both artists’ work will be on display from August 1-31. The gallery will host a reception on Thursday, August 4, from 5 to 7p.m. The public is invited to attend.