South Plaza Sculpture Exhibit
Thursday, May 3rd - Monday, September 3rd

"Birds of the Saluda Grade", 2006
(Welded Steel)

Artist
Joe Thompson

“I see my sculpture as a juncture between physical and conceptual form. I am interested in the relative perception of the nature of things, things like truth, things like clarity, things like power. My objects are a metaphor for this inquiry. My sculpture attempts to divine a point of reference in a non-referential environment, to provide a stage for common perception so that the viewer senses some heightened connection to a larger humanity. The approach is an intuitive one, based largely on a visceral sense of truth that is felt in meaningful work. It is also grounded in the satisfaction of doing something well, investing oneself in a process so that the resulting object seems to become somehow self-possessed, generating its own sense of value” – Artists Statement

"Vardamans Mother is a Fish"
(Pine with a Brass Bell)

"Vardmans Mother is a Fish" was taken from a chapter (Vardaman) in Faulkner's novel "As I Lay Dying". - My mother is a fish- is the entire text of the chapter, and the imagery has to do with the coffin as a vessel to the next life. For me the piece is also about the idea of eulogy... what we have learned from those who have passed on, what we know about them, what they might have imparted to us (a warning, a signal,.. a truth). - Joe Thompson

Joe Thompson received his BFA Ed in 1990 from the University of Georgia in Art Education. In 1998 he received his MFA from Clemson University in Sculpture. Thompson's teaching experience includes the Department Chair and Sculpture Facility at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities, Sculpture Facility, University of GA studies abroad program, Corona Italy and Adjunct Faculty, Converse College, Art Appreciation.

Recent juried and solo exhibitions include High School Art Teachers Invitational, Columbia College, Columbia, SC; From the Teachers Studio, Upstairs Art Gallery, Tryon, NC; Surdna Foundation Fellowship, Mexico.

"Reclining Nude", 1997
(Plywood & Inner Tube Rubber)

"Memories of the South", 2003
(Plywood & Inner Tube Rubber)

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