Milliken Gallery Exhibition Examines Hyper Sexualized Obsessions
Opening on August 28th, Milliken Gallery will host a large selection of paintings and works on paper by Charleston artist Karen Ann Myers in her exhibition This is What Makes Us Girls. Myers’ work was recently described by Flavorwire online as “psychologically intense, densely decorated portraits examine our culture’s hyper sexualized obsession with glamour and physical beauty, touching on its aesthetic extremes, seductive appeal, and emotional casualties. Each image represents a certain aspect in a sort of collective self-portrait, with her subjects inhabiting a kaleidoscope of loneliness, power struggles, cocktail dresses, and clashing patterns.” The exhibition will be available to view through September 25. Gallery hours: Monday—Friday 9:00 am—5:00 pm, Sunday 2:00—5:00 pm. The gallery is closed during school holidays.
“Psychologically intense, densely decorated portraits examine our culture’s hyper sexualized obsession with glamour and physical beauty, touching on its aesthetic extremes, seductive appeal, and emotional casualties.”
On Thursday, September 4th, , at 6:00 pm in the Milliken Art Gallery, a Gallery Talk with the Artist Karen Ann Myers will include discussions of her career and art process. The Gallery Talk will be followed by the opening reception at 6:30 pm. The exhibit and events are free and open to the public.
Myers says that with her paintings she is “investigating the psychological complexity of women through intimate observations in the bedroom. The work is inspired by the cult of beauty in contemporary mass media. Intricately painted, decorative interiors are invented to titillate the viewer.”
Karen Ann Myers is an artist, educator and curator. She received an MFA in Painting from Boston University and a BFA in Studio Art from Michigan State University. Her paintings and works on paper exist nationally and internationally in private collections and have most recently been exhibited at LUIS DE JESUS gallery in Los Angeles, CA, Robert Steele Gallery in New York, NY, at the Commonwealth Gallery in Boston, MA, the Katzen Arts Center in Washington, DC, the Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, Dalton Gallery at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, GA and the Visual Arts Gallery, University of Alabama, Birmingham, AL.
For more information about this exhibition, contact Kathryn Boucher, Milliken Art Gallery Director for Converse College, at kathryn.boucher@converse.edu.