Lee Monts "Age and Intuition"

Artist Lee Monts returns to the Main Gallery at City Art on June 26 with “Age & Intuition”, a solo exhibition featuring a year of selected paintings created for his 50th birthday. As a special part of celebrating this milestone event, Lee will show 50 individual small paintings to mark the years it takes to reach this momentous occasion. “The City Art family finds our ability to host this celebration an honor,” states Gallery Director Wendyth T. Wells. An opening reception will be held June 26 from 5pm –8pm.

As a well-recognized artist and one of the better-known painters represented by City Art Gallery, Monts will also be showing many larger works not seen before in public. These works are emblematic of his growth building during the years since 2011 when Monts made a splash with his first solo exhibition at City Art. The work of Monts has been included in many juried exhibitions with awards accompanying those chosen in many cases.

While there is a familiarity to many of the works, Lee’s painting style has matured with a greater complexity of composition and use of creative intuition and exploration of materials. And while this maturation has occurred and still continues to develop, he remains masterful in creating an intentional and distinctive simplicity to express nature. In many of the most recent paintings, Monts has used iridescent fine bronze acrylic paint with high flow pigments to create reticulated surfaces sealed under an epoxy-like, clear acrylic pouring medium.

Monts, a Program Manager with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, mostly paints on nights and weekends. In addition to several professional awards in the past few years, he achieved his Membership of Excellence with the South Carolina Watermedia Society in 2012. Help Lee celebrate his 50th birthday at the opening reception on June 26. “Age & Intuition” will remain on display through July 26.

City Art Gallery is located at 1224 Lincoln St. in the historic Congaree Vista area in Columbia, South Carolina. Gallery hours are Monday – Thursday 10 a.m. until 6 p.m., Friday 10:00 am until 5 p.m., and Saturdays 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information contact Wendyth Wells, City Art Gallery, at 803-252-3613 or email ww@cityartonline.com. Visit online at www.cityartonline.com.