Bio-Statement
After earning an MA in Applied Art History and an MFA in Painting from the University of South Carolina in 1980, I served on the faculties of Lyon College in Batesville, AR, and Barry University in Miami, FL. In 1985 I became director of the Waterworks Visual Arts Center in Salisbury, NC and five years later the director of Winthrop University Galleries in Rock Hill, SC. I served as chair of Fine Arts for10 years before leaving Winthrop in 2017. I currently live in Durham, NC.
Early in my career I was inspired by the work of self-taught artists who I had interviewed as a graduate student. This led to the exhibition Worth Keeping: Found Artists of the Carolinas, that opened at the Columbia Museum of Art in 1981, and Still Worth Keeping: Communities, Preservation and Self Taught Artists in collaboration with the South Carolina State Museum that opened there in 1997.
My most recent curatorial project was True Likeness, a diverse exhibition of portraiture co-curated with Lia Newman, Director of Davidson College’s Van Every/Smith Galleries. True Likeness opened at Davidson in 2020 and the project went on to travel to the Gregg Museum of Art and Design at NC State and university galleries in Fl, AL, Pa and MI. I continue to catalogue the drawings of self-taught artist Gene Merritt (1936-2015). Merritt’s 1998 one-person exhibition of methodically drawn and highly labelled portraits at the Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne helped introduce Gene to wider audiences.
My own art is produced in series that share size, color, or imagery. Recurring shapes like triangles and visual symbols like houses and boats appear in the work. I use acrylic on canvas and paper and graphic strategies like mechanical drawing, silhouette and sgraffito. Working in series fits my desire to find visual and conceptual solutions from one group of paintings to the next. Beyond techniques, another common thread is my interest in how line, symmetry and asymmetry work in balance. My recent drawings are small. There is an intimate experience in their making. At this point in my making that is more important than ever.
Recently, the series Uncharted Water opened at Hampton III Gallery in 2024, and Moving Onward opened at the George Gallery in Charleston, SC in November 2024. Currently, I am honored to be included in the exhibition and publication At This Moment, Portraits of South Carolina Artist by Jerry Siegel currently at the Greenville County Museum of Art.
Selected collections include Nebraska Medical Center; Lander University; College of Charleston; Johnson Collection; Greenville County Museum of Art; Gibbes Museum of Art; Asheville Art Museum; South Carolina State Museum; Weatherspoon Art Museum; Ashley River Tower, Medical University of South Carolina; Davidson College; South Carolina Arts Commission; Carolinas Medical Center, Charlotte; and Affinity Health Center, Rock Hill, SC.
See CV here.
Represented in UpCountry SC by Hampton III Gallery / 3110 Wade Hampton Blvd. Suite 10 / Taylors, South Carolina 29687 / https://www.hamptoniiigallery.com/ sandy@hamptoniiigallery.com / (864) 268-2771 / Link to Stanley’s Works at Hampton III
Represented in Charleston, SC by The George Gallery / 54 Broad St. / Charleston SC 29401 / 843-579-7328 / www.georgegalleryart.com/ info@georgegalleryart.com / Link to Stanley’s Works at The George Gallery