Stephen Chesley’s Solo Exhibition at the Myrtle Beach Art Museum

One of Vista Studios’ resident oil painters is being featured in a solo exhibition in Myrtle Beach. Here’s the information:

The Art of Stephen Chesley: Twilight, Slight Rain

Poetic Realist Paintings
September 11– October 21, 2007
Opening reception: Thursday, September 13 from 5:30pm to 7:30pm

at the Franklin G. Burroughs-Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum is located in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina at 3100 South Ocean Boulevard across from the Springmaid Pier.

The museum’s website includes this additional information:

Columbia, South Carolina artist Stephen Chesley didn’t intend to become an artist. His degrees are in urban regional planning (BS from Virginia Commonwealth and MA from Clemson University’s School of Architecture), but after spending a brief time in that profession, he turned to his lifelong love of drawing and painting. Brooding landscapes are what Chesley is renowned for, and while on first glance they are read figuratively, there’s an abstract, mysterious quality that intrigues the viewer.

While influenced by the likes of Rembrandt, Winslow Homer, James Whistler, George Seurat, Edward Hopper and even Jackson Pollock, Chesley is primarily self-taught. Sometimes described as dramatic and even foreboding, his works tend to make more obvious the drama found in the ordinary.

As the artist himself explains, “I wish to make you wonder what is just around the bend, over the horizon, or behind a window. I strive to create a mystery, to portray a presence of massive form by not portraying it, or a presence through the unseen that casts a shadow or reflection. Something is just a breath away, a step or a shift of the eye.”

For directions to this exhibit, please visit: http://www.myrtlebeachartmuseum.org/myrtle_beach_location.htm

For more information about Stephen Chesley and his work (plus where to find him painting in his local, Columbia studio), please visit www.gallery80808vistastudios.com