Title: Genesis
Medium: Direct-dye on silk

 
September 8–October 8, 2008
Reception:  Thursday, September 18, 5:30–7 pm
Goodall Gallery
Spears Music/Art Center
 
 
The Columbia College Department of Art is proud to open the 2008-2009 gallery season with Refractions, a solo exhibition featuring South Carolina artist, Judy Hubbard opening September 8 and running through October 8.  The exhibit will feature several art forms spanning Hubbard’s 35 year career including:  a new series of silk batiks, textile and mixed media wall pieces, sculptures, and an installation.

In a new series of silk batiks entitled Soprano Voices, Hubbard does something she hasn’t done before:  put herself in a box, or a square to be more exact.  Individual 11-inch silk square panels are worked in a painterly fashion using repetitive layers of direct-dye resist creating a complex balance of vibrant color, movement and tension.  The small and singular surface was initially a struggle for Hubbard, whose earlier works used the batik process with multiple dye series, varying weaves and densities of silk, cotton and paper.  But as the process evolved for Soprano Voices, Hubbard discovered new strengths and freedoms as the works shifted into an “exuberant high and clear voice,” as opposed to previous works that “could, at times, be viewed as introspective, melancholic and muted” says Hubbard.  With a single layer surface and the direct-dye process, Hubbard is engaged in refining the composition until it reaches a place of clarity by “relying on the most traditional element of batik, the dot, to energize a directive, pulsing flow….in many of the works something cellular and heart-like has emerged.” 
 
Hubbard’s earlier textile and mixed media work will also be featured, as well as sculptures well known for their symbolic, rich layering of objects and imagery.  Hubbard’s ongoing fascination with people and stories from her past, present and future life provide the content centered around a core theme of time in the “kiros” state, meaning the “fullness” of time.  Hubbard incorporates the parts and pieces of clocks, various found objects and dyed silks arranged in transparent, layered panels.  For Hubbard these earlier works are about “valuing things not for their wholeness, but for each element.”
 
The exhibition also includes an installation comprised of recycled plastic bottles that was originally part of Columbia’s Open Eyes Exhibition in 2006.  Hubbard amassed hundreds of empty plastic drinking bottles from various resources around the city to create a structure to honor women who courageously reclaimed and transformed their lives through the Columbia Women’s Shelter.  The bottles, discarded and devalued objects, form a towering translucent structure to symbolize a “refuge where one gains strength for the journey.”
 
Hubbard’s work has exhibited regionally and nationally. Her work is included in the South Carolina State Art Collection as well as numerous private and corporate collections.
 
The Columbia College Goodall Gallery is located in the Spears Music and Art Center in downtown Columbia on North Main Street, 1301 Columbia College Drive. Gallery hours are Monday through Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.  For further information about exhibits please contact Jackie Adams at (803) 786-3088.