Local artists heather LaHaise and Jan Swanson are teaming up for their first Bad Moms Art Show on Thursday, November 10 from 12:00 noon until 9:00 PM at Swanson’s studio, located at 1390 Kathwood Drive, in Columbia.
 
Swanson and LaHaise have known each other since the years when Swanson operated the popular Bus Stop Gallery on Millwood Avenue.  Both artists are represented by Art and Light Gallery in Greenville, and LaHaise’s work is licensed to appear in the recent comedy film Bad Moms, which suggested this special joint exhibition’s title.
While their styles of painting are different, LaHaise and Swanson have similar tastes in most other areas; both are moms – although hopefully not  bad ones – and wanted to offer a light-hearted approach to their art show.
Swanson is a self-taught artist working in oils and collage.  Her work tends to be colorful, sometimes humorous, and definitely non-representational.  She is a graduate of Clemson University and a native of Asheville, NC. Two of her paintings have won first place (2013 and 2015) in the Mixed Media Division at the South Carolina State Fair.  Her work was also accepted into the “Carolina’s Got Art” Juried Exhibition in Charlotte, and has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at City Art, Gallery 80808 and Camellia Art(where she is represented) in Hilton Head, SC.
LaHaise is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and moved to New York upon graduation to take art classes at Pratt Manhattan.  Planes of uneven color, gestural marks and calculated drips mark her style, and dogs are often the focus of the finished piece.  She attempts to balance abstractionism and realism in her paintings using an expressive layering of paint and graphic use of space.  While the dogs may give her a voice, she strives to transcend the singular category of dog art.
Currently, several of her pieces are available in Crate and Barrel (in store and online).  The piece licensed to Bad Moms, “Whitewashed,” is currently available in Pottery Barn.  Her work has been featured in the New York Post, Modern Dog Magazine and on HGTV, and many notable blogs such as Dog Art Today andDesign Milk, have featured her work as well.  In addition to Art & Light, Heather shows her work in Charleston, SC at SRO on Queen Street.  

More information on the featured artists’ work can be found on their websites:  http://janswansonart.com/ and http://heatherlahaise.com/