The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art Shows Works by Bob Ray & Steve Johnson

Written by Harriet Wilkerson Friday, 19 August 2011 22:16

Charleston, SC.– The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston School of the Arts is pleased to present two concurrent solo exhibitions, "White Days Unswallowed" by Bob Ray and "From the Ground Up" by Steve Johnson. The exhibitions open with a reception on Friday, August 26th from 5 until 7pm and run through October 7th. Prior to the public reception, the community is invited to a gallery walk-through with Bob Ray and Director/Senior Curator Mark Sloan at 4:30pm. During the opening reception, Bob Ray and his son will debut an original performance entitled “White Days Unswallowed.” Visitors will have the chance to hear Steve Johnson speak about his work on Saturday, August 27th at 2:30pm inside the Halsey Institute’s galleries. Throughout the exhibition, guided group tours will be offered.  All events are free with the public encouraged to attend.

Steve Johnson was born and raised in Mesa, Arizona and moved to San Francisco in 1996. He graduated from San Francisco State University with a B.A. in printmaking and painting in 2003 and received an M.F.A. in painting and drawing from Arizona State University in 2008. Johnson was invited as a Master Printmaker artist in residence at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop in NYC in 2010 where he completed a suite of lithographs. The published prints have since been shown in art fairs and exhibitions both nationally and internationally: Editions/Artists’ Book Fair and New NY Print Publishers, NYC; Impressions Orlando Print Fair, FL; and Frans Masereel Centrum, Belgium. This year, Johnson has had a solo exhibition at 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco, CA and at Blackburn 20/20 in New York City. Steve Johnson is an Assistant Professor of Drawing at the College of Charleston.

Johnson states, “One of my objectives as an artist is to bridge conflicting views by revealing shared concerns and common ground. The basic desire to find and maintain security, whether in a home, job, or relationship, in a forever shifting landscape, can create more losers than winners. Using a cast of chickadees, rats, and hummingbirds, my current work navigates the gray areas and middle grounds inhabited by animals with competing interests.” For the exhibition at the Halsey Institute, Johnson merges drawing with painting as he layers a variety of dry and wet media on wood panels. The warm tones and textures of the wood panels serve as a background for the small animals rendered with a cool palette of colored pencils and watercolors. In addition to showing a sampling of recent prints and drawings, Johnson will be creating a large, site-specific drawing installation as part of the exhibition.

Bob Ray, born just east of Kansas City, MO, works in a variety of media, from drawings, paintings, collage, and sculpture to correspondence and performance works. His aesthetic borrows heavily from the Dada and Fluxus movements, with a strong combination of word, gesture, and image. Since 1990, he has been very active in international correspondence art activities and projects in Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Egypt, Japan, United States, Bolivia, Spain, Hungary, Switzerland and Latvia. He has had extended exchanges with some of the most significant correspondence artists in the world, including Ray Johnson, Richard C, Giorgio Cavalinni and Torma Cauli.

Bob Ray’s works are as illusive as his artist statement: “it was not made of words so I ate what I could grasp”. What is made poorly, what is made well -- an Ozark hog pen, a thoroughbred stable in Kentucky-- what runs between these constructions? How does one arrive at these points? The poetic image, mysteries of a nocturnal fable, random juxtapositions of the man made and the natural which eventually leak into each other; this is the composition of my visual interest at the moment.  In addition to his complex and varied visual works, Ray is also an accomplished "honky tonk" singer and guitar player. Currently living twenty-three miles out in the Atlantic Ocean on the island of Ocracoke, NC, Ray’s work has been published and exhibited internationally.


The Halsey is committed to providing a direct experience with works of art in all media within an environment that fosters creativity, individuality, innovation and education. In addition to producing exhibitions, lectures, film series, publications, and a comprehensive website, the Halsey serves as an extension of the undergraduate curricula at the College and as a cultural resource for the region. In The Marion and Wayland H. Cato Jr. Center for the Arts, the Halsey Institute has a much-expanded space on the first floor of this five-story building. The Halsey occupies two interlinked gallery spaces, a dedicated media room, and a library/resource area. Visit the institute's website at ... http://halsey.cofc.edu

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