Mary Bentz Gilkerson – Remembering

Mary Bentz Gilkerson 1958 – 2022 was an artist who used color and light to connect people to the experience of place. Gilkerson noted, “For the last four years I have been making a small painting every day inspired by the landscapes I travel through, mainly near the roads and highways around Columbia, SC, especially Lower Richland. I’m drawn to the ordinary spaces we move through, especially ones that are within view from the road, a strange intersection of nature and culture. We move so fast that we don’t take time to observe the world around us in the way that people did before modern transportation and technology came along. My work seeks to focus on the shifting patterns of light and color that tell us what time of day and season it is, to notice the small and subtle as well as the large and grand.”

Gilkerson held an MFA in drawing and painting from the University of South Carolina. A native South Carolinian, she lived and worked in Columbia where she was a professor of art at Columbia College. She has received grants from the S.C. Arts Commission and the Cultural Council of Richland and Lexington Counties in addition to having been selected as a Southern Arts Federation Fellowship Finalist. Her work is in the permanent collections of McKissick Museum, Palmetto Health, Morris Communications Company, and Seibels Bruce Group, among others. She has been recognized for excellence in teaching by the South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities (SCICU).

Join Mike Brown Contemporary at Stormwater Studios for an exhibition of her work and celebration of her life.

Exhibition

March 22 – April 2, 2022

Reception

March 25, 3 PM

Stormwater Studios

413 Pendleton St, Columbia, SC 29201.

For info: www.mikebrowncontemporary.com, 803-446-3399