"Scotty Peek, Virginia Scotchie, Bri Kinard: Recent Works" Opening Reception

Scotty Peek teaches art at Heathwood Hall Episcopal School. Peek’s work for this exhibit falls into three categories. The first series is a balance between drawing and painting using commercial properties as subjects. The second is a series of simple portraits of non-profit organizations whose purpose is to benefit varied members of our community. Dissatisfied with the disconnection he was feeling in these first two series, his third series began by looking around his everyday surroundings and his personal space. It was then that he began to paint exclusively from life, both indoors and outdoors. Some pieces have specific meaning and are of things that he loves, other objects he simply wanted to visually study, but the delight is greatest when both forces converge.

Virginia Scotchie is a ceramic artist and area head of ceramics at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Scotchie’s work for this exhibition is the result of a summer of creating in the studio, opening the kiln to a body of functional pieces, each marked with her unique touch. In her words, “Exploration in the studio is an ongoing visual investigation of man-made and natural objects. Usually these consist of small things, ordinary in many ways but possessing an odd quirkiness that pulls me to them.”

Bri Kinard is a ceramic and mixed media artist. She is currently an Instructor of Ceramics and Head of Technical Operations of the ceramic studio at The School of Visual Art and Design at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.

Kinard and Scotchie worked side by side throughout the summer in the USC Ceramics studio, experimenting with shapes, glazes and firings. Both artists created bodies of functional ceramic pieces that beg to be touched, used and treasured.