"Explorations in Color" Exhibit Opens Dec. 1

The Pickens County Museum of Art & History will be presenting three new exhibitions beginning December 1, 2012. Please join us from 6:00 until 8:00 p.m. on December 1 as we host a reception to meet the artist featured in “Philip Gott: Explorations in Color”.

Also opening that evening will be the exhibit “Crossing the Line: Thirty-One Drawings by Thirty-One Artists” and “Writing; Putting Pen to Paper”. All three exhibitions will continue through February 7, 2013.

Having grown up in the swamps of South Florida, Philip Gott showed great promise early, garnering attention from stunned relatives and child psychologists alike for refusing to color within the lines.

Soon, though, Philip became more concerned with bikinis and water skis and really had very little exposure to fine art until he began his architectural studies in Paris. It was in the City of Light where he was seduced by the magic of the creative impulse and decided to dedicate his life to the suffering requisite to the life of an artist.

From watching his uncle Max working feverishly in his atelier in Paris whenever he could steal the time, Philip tasted the all consuming passion and realized he had to find that passion of his own. By painting alongside artist Glenna Finch, meeting her friends Syd Solomon and Conrad Marca-Relli and learning some of their techniques, Philip first grasped the commitment and dedication to the process of expression that consumed the professional artist.

Although his professional career as an architect provided most of his creative expression, Philip painted whenever he could and took advantage of his romantic liaisons and friendships with other artists to broaden his vocabulary of painterly expression.

A weekend workshop with Richard Anuskiewicz clarified an understanding of color theory while a class on sculpting in clay with Eddie Economo prodded a foray into three-dimensional abstract figural work. Besides hands-on studies, Philip’s knowledge base has been frequently enhanced with far-flung travels and intense museum experiences, continuing his studies today in the Museum School of the Greenville Art Museum under the tutelage of Carrie Burns Brown.

When asked about his work, Gott wrote simply, “Res ipsa loquitur (it speaks for itself).” He then continued, saying, “Although experimental by nature, my two dimensional art work has been almost exclusively non-representational and heavily involved in color as the primary mode of expression. Influenced by Pop Art and the lithographs of Bernard Cathelin, my early work tended to flat planes of graphic color but soon, under the influence of Pollock and Tobey, it became more calligraphic and gestural, still preoccupied with color but adding spatial depth to the concerns. But even though the all-over quality of this work remains a prominent part of my vocabulary, compositional elements along with experiments in collage and applied texture have led me to a more painterly place where I can openly acknowledge my debt to Abstract Expressionism. Well-schooled in “form follows function” and The Nature of Materials, this seems to be an appropriate place to be.”

The Pickens County Museum of Art & History is funded in part by Pickens County, members and friends of the museum and a grant from the South Carolina Arts Commission, which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

 Located at the corner of Hwy. 178 at 307 Johnson Street in Pickens SC, the museum is open Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m., Thursdays from 9:00 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. and Saturdays from 9:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. Admission is free but donations are welcomed.

For more information please contact the museum at (864) 898-5963.

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