Joe Walters: A Mid-Career Retrospective
September 15 - September 16, 2010The Sumter County Gallery of Art, in partnership with Solomon Projects, hosted a major exhibition of Charleston-based artist Joe Walters, his first in South Carolina in 14 years. Walters, inspired by the natural surroundings of eastern Kentucky, creates complex sculptural installations that explore human relationships with nature. His works, often made of polymer clay and textured with sand and paint, depict abstract plant and animal forms that activate space and emphasize the interconnectedness of living things. Notable pieces include *Tango*, inspired by the dance, and *Waterline Kisses*, reflecting water, marsh life, and reflections. Art critic Andrea Bejarano notes Walters’s focus on themes of life cycles, natural decay, and romanticized moments frozen in time. Walters holds an MFA from East Carolina University and has exhibited widely in the Southeast, Florida, and New York. He is represented by Solomon Projects and Bernice Steinbaum Gallery.
These exhibitions showcased significant contemporary sculptural work engaging with themes of nature, culture, societal issues, and environmental concerns.
The Sumter County Gallery of Art in conjunction with Solomon Projects in Atlanta, GA, is proud to present a major exhibition of sculpture and works on paper by Charleston-based artist Joe Walters; his first major showing in South Carolina in 14 years. Inspired by the natural world that surrounded him while growing up in eastern Kentucky, Walters creates installations of visual complexity and beauty, which metaphorically address issues involving human relationships with nature. Walters regards the individual plant and animal forms as abstract shapes, which activate space. When viewed from various vantage points, the “interwoven” sculptures create a tapestry-like effect reinforcing Walters’s theme of the interdependence of all living things.
Tango, a newly created piece inspired by the dance of the same name, is a lyrical, curvy wall sculpture composed of branches, leaves, seedpods and flower heads. The work
evokes a traditional “still life” capturing the fleeting nature of life in material form. Another new work Waterline Kisses, is an abstract sculptural representation of reflections in a body of water, of marsh vegetation, insects and birds. As with all his sculptural work, Walters’ new pieces are hand-modeled of polymer clay and finished with layers of sand, and paint to create a textured, weathered appearance.
Arts writer Andrea Bejarano states that Walters work “examines the human connection to the natural world as well as the life cycle of germination, growth, death and decay.” “His new work is fascinated with representing vegetation, such as fallen leaves or branches one would see on a quiet forest floor.” “These frozen moments in time represent a kind of romantic or fantasy approach to an eternal natural cycle.”
Walters received his MFA in sculpture from East Carolina University, Greenville, NC.
He has exhibited throughout the Southeast, Florida and New York in institutions such as: the Mint Museum of Art, The Weatherspoon Art Museum, Jacksonville Museum of Modern Art and the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art. He is represented by Solomon Projects in Atlanta, GA and Bernice Steinbaum Gallery in Miami, FL.
