Hub-Bub to Exhibit Latest Works by Converse professors Teresa Prater and Andrew Blanchard
Converse College art professors Teresa Prater and Andrew Blanchard will join forces and talents for an exhibition sponsored by Spartanburg’s Hub-Bub organization. Entitled “Aberration & Appropriation,” the exhibit will run Nov. 2-Dec. 5 in Hub-Bub’s The Showroom.
An opening night reception is scheduled from 7-9 p.m. Prater will showcase works of figurative and digitally manipulated photography while Blanchard will exhibit his latest autobiographical mixed media prints.
“Andrew Blanchard has been in Spartanburg only a short time and has already had a huge impact on the art community here. He is involved in many projects and organizations including the Artist Guild and HUB-BUB,” said Stephen Long, director of The Showroom. “Andrew has been an inspiration to many young artists. His work has a very contemporary aesthetic and simultaneously embraces techniques and imagery of the past. We asked Andrew to exhibit and choose the artist or artists that he would like to show with. Andrew has been greatly influenced by Teresa Prater and she was the natural choice for him to make. Teresa is an asset to the arts in Spartanburg and, like Andrew, has influenced students and other artists in Spartanburg for years. The two represent different generations but share the same motivations, commitments and passions.”
Prater is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Studio Art at Converse and serves as chair of the college’s art and design department. Her drawings and paintings have been shown in twenty-three one-person exhibitions and over 100 exhibitions nationally and in Mexico and Switzerland.
“The digital photographs I am presently exploring are reminiscent of the narrative charcoal drawings that I created over a period of ten years,” said Prater. “Having moved from charcoal drawings to traditional photography, then to digitally manipulated photographs I strive to engage the viewer with seductive figures, distorted reality, and dark undertones. Working solely with the figure as subject matter, references to mythology, archetypes, contemporary social issues, and human relationships are intertwined among the images. Using textures and images of nature as a component of the layering, the work evokes both aesthetic appeal and mystery. I am interested in having the viewer both startled and awed. Created on Photoshop, the final products are a mix of scanned silver gelatin prints and digitally created photographs. All initial photographs are mine and I use family, friends, and models as resources.”
Blanchard is an assistant professor of art at Converse. A gifted printmaker, his works have been exhibited in over a dozen national and international juried printmaking exhibitions, including the last two Bradley International Printmaking and Drawing Exhibition and the last four Parkside National Small Print Exhibitions. He has won awards for his lithograph-silkscreen combination prints in the Sumei International Printmaking Exhibition and the Delta National Small Print Exhibition. His prints have been collected throughout the United States, as well as Paris, France and Seoul, South Korea.