Leo Twiggs: Targeted Man Essay

(click on image to enlarge)

Laura Spong: Still Screaming & Leo Twiggs: Targeted Man, February 5-17, 2009

if ART Gallery

presents at

GALLERY 80808/VISTA STUDIOS

808 Lady St., Columbia, SC

LAURA SPONG: Still Screaming

&

LEO TWIGGS: Targeted Man

Reception: Friday, February 6, 5 – 9 p.m.

Opening Hours:

Weekdays, 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.

Saturday, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Sunday, 1 – 5 p.m.

& by appointment

For more information, contact Wim Roefs at if ART:

(803) 255-0068/ (803) 238-2351 – if-art-gallery@sc.twcbc.com

For its February 2009 exhibition, if ART presents Gallery 80808/Vista Studios in Columbia, S.C., two solo exhibitions by some of South Carolina most prominent veteran artists, Columbia’s Laura Spong and Orangeburg’s Leo Twiggs.

Both artists will present new work. Spong will show her trademark Abstract Expressionist oil paintings. Twiggs will exhibit a new series of batik paintings around the theme of “targeted man,” featuring figures adorned with a bull’s eye or target.

Laura Spong (b. 1926) is among South Carolina’s most prominent non-objective painters. In the past three years, Spong has further increased her reputation with several solo exhibitions, including a retrospective at the University of South Carolina’s McMaster Gallery. For her 2006 exhibition, Laura Spong at 80, Columbia’s if ART published a 32-page catalogue. In addition to the S.C. State Art Collection, Spong’s work was purchased recently by the Greenville (S.C.) County Museum of Art and the S.C. State Museum. Three of her paintings also are in the Contemporary Carolina Collection, which was established in 2008 at the Medical University of South Carolina’s Ashley River Tower in Charleston. Spong maintains a studio at Vista Studios in Columbia.

Leo Twiggs (b. 1934) is a native of St. Stephen, S.C., who lives in Orangeburg, S.C., where he taught art at South Carolina State University from 1964 until 1998 and established a museum. Twiggs is widely seen as one of the most important South Carolina artists since the 1960s. His career retrospective, Myths and Metaphors: The Art Of Leo Twiggs, organized by the Georgia Museum of Art and accompanied by a catalogue, completed a two-year tour at the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia in April 2006. Twiggs has had dozens of solo exhibitions in museums and galleries in the Southeast and beyond, including the Studio Museum in Harlem. In 1964, he received a graduate degree in art from New York University and in 1970 was the first African American to receive an Ed.D. in art education from the University of Georgia. In 1981, he was the first to receive as an individual South Carolina’s highest art award, the Elizabeth O’Neil Verner Governor’s Award for the Arts.

Preview of Leo Twiggs: Targeted Man: February 5-17, 2008

Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934)
Targeted Man—Emerging, 2009
Batik on cotton
13 ½ x 10 ½ in.
$ 5,600

Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934)
Targeted Man—That One, 2009
Batik on cotton
9 x 8 ½ in.
$ 3,500

Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934)
Targeted Man—Hooded, 2009
Batik on cotton
15 x 8 in.
$ 5,600

Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934)
Targeted Man—Standing, 2009
Batik on cotton
13 ½ x 10 ½ in.
$ 5,600

Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934)
Targeted Man # 1, 2007
Batik on cotton
26 ½ x 26 ½ in.
$ 13,000

Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934)
Targeted Man # 2, 2007
Batik on cotton
26 ½ x 26 ½ in.
$ 13,000

Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934)
Targeted Man # 3, 2007
Batik on cotton
26 ½ x 26 ½ in. 
$ 13,000

Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934)
Targeted Man # 4, 2007
Batik on cotton
26 ½ x 26 ½ in. 
$ 13,000

Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934)
Targeted Man- Window Image, 2008
Batik on cotton
13 ½ x 10 ½ in. 

$ 5,600

Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934)
Targeted Man- Window Image Moved, 2008
Batik on cotton
13 ½ x 10 ½ in. 

$ 5,600

Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934)
Targeted Man- Meeting, 2008
Batik on cotton
11 x 9 ½ in.
$ 4,000

Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934)
Legacy, 2007
Batik on cotton
16 ½ x 23 ½ in.
$ 8,000

Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934)

Targeted Man, 2007 

Batik on cotton

51  x 27 in.

$ 18,000

Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934)
Targeted Man- Black, 2008
Batik on cotton
13 ½ x 10 ½ in. 
$ 5,600

Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934)
Targeted Man- White, 2008
Batik on cotton
13 ½ x 10 ½ in. 
$ 5,600

Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934)
Seeking Sanctuary, 2006
Batik on cotton
11 x 18 in. 
$ 6,500

Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934)
Moving Target Series, 2006
Batik on cotton
6 x 7 ¾ in. 
$ 2,200

Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934)
Fallen, 2008
Batik on cotton
16 x 9 in. 
$ 5,600

Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934)
Country Fair, 2008
Batik on cotton
18 ½ x 24 in.
$ 8,500