Artist David Stern brings 'American Years' to the Halsey

The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston School of the Arts will be showing artist David Stern's newest collection, "The American Years (1995-2008)," beginning today and running through Oct. 8.

The show is a comprehensive examination of about 40 paintings and drawings since his immigration from Germany to New York in 1994.

As Karen Wilkin, curator of the national traveling exhibition and primary author of the accompanying catalog, has pointed out, "David Stern's history as an artist encapsulates, in many ways, the wholly modern notion of the 'artist without borders' whose work reflects the multivalent experience of an increasingly globalized world."

"His forceful and energetic canvases, covered in inches-thick layers of paint, convey the dizzying, exciting and sometimes sinister experience of the modern metropolis," says Rebecca Silberman of the Halsey Institute.

Stern has referred to himself as an "action painter," echoing the artistic legacies of New York School painters Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline. Yet his captivating human forms, by turns tragic, grotesque and vulnerable, reach further back to histories of portraiture.

An exhibition of Stern's earlier work was at the Halsey Gallery in 1999.

There will be a free exhibition walk-through at 4 p.m. Sept. 2, followed by the opening reception at 5-7 p.m.

An additional gallery walk-through and reception with the artist will be held after a Selichot concert featuring Neil Weintrob, concert violinist, and Robin Zemp, pianist, at 9 p.m. Sept. 4. This concert will be held at the Recital Hall within the Simons Center for the Arts on 54 St. Philip St.

Tickets to the artist's walk through are $10 and can be purchased at the door or in advance by contacting the The Yaschik/Arnold Jewish Studies Program at 953-5682.

The accompanying exhibition catalog will be for sale at these events and throughout the exhibition.

The Halsey Institute is in The Marion and Wayland H. Cato Jr. Center for the Arts, 161 Calhoun Street.

For more information, call 953-4422 or visit www.halsey.cofc.edu.

Smith Family Women

Join "The Smiths," Betty Anglin Smith, Shannon Smith and Jennifer Smith Rogers, today at the Wells Gallery at the Sanctuary on Kiawah Island for a new collective show of their works featuring paintings of the Lowcountry and Kiawah.

The gallery will host an artist demonstration at 4-5 p.m. by Jennifer Smith Rogers and Shannon Smith. A cocktail reception will immediately follow from 5-8 p.m. for the Smith family women.

"Betty and two of her triplets, Jennifer and Shannon, bring us new works that display the similar color palette they share while highlighting their varying techniques and visions," says Hume Killian of the Wells Gallery.

"Each artist works to be independent while still relying on the family for challenge and support," Killian says. "An artistic passion consumes their world and it drives them to grow a presence and quality of work that speaks nationwide to collectors and visitors about today's life in the Lowcountry."

Light hors d'oeuvres and cocktails will be served. For more information, call 576-1290 or visit the gallery in person at 1 Sanctuary Drive, at the Sanctuary on Kiawah Island.