Carl Blair's Flora & Fauna: Installation Photographs

(AAB Photography)

Carl Blair's Flora & Fauna: April 17- May 9, 2009

At its location on Lincoln Street, Columbia, SC, if ART Gallery presents Carl Blair’s Flora & Fauna, an exhibition of wooden animal sculptures and new paintings by Greenville artist Carl Blair. This will be the first Columbia exhibition by the veteran artist featuring sculpture. The exhibition also will be on view during Artista Vista 2009, April 23-25.

Carl Blair’s Flora & Fauna refers to the plant and animal life of Carl Blair’s mind, some of it of literal places and critters, other simply of Blair’s imagination. Nature always has been Carl Blair’s main visual inspiration – nature and the countryside in general. Some of his animal sculptures are representative, and all of them, fanciful. They are a reminder of Blair’s upbringing on a farm and of his insistence that as a youngster, he spent more time with animals than with human beings. To some extent, Blair regards his animal sculptures as self-portraits.

Nature typically is the basis of his heavily abstracted paintings, whether it’s the flatlands of the Midwest or the more mountainous terrain of the South Carolina Upstate. There, Blair lives on Paris Mountain, just outside of Greenville and near Paris Mountain State Park. He has lived there since the 1970s, when the place was still mostly undeveloped.

Kansas native and Greenville, S.C., resident Carl Blair in 2005 received South Carolina’s Elizabeth O’Neil Verner Governor’s Award for the Arts for Lifetime Achievement. He has been as an artist, administrator, educator and a driving force in South Carolina arts since in 1957, when he began teaching at Bob Jones University, from which he retired in 1998. He has shown in galleries and museums all along the East Coast as well as abroad. His prominence as a painter and sculptor has increased steadily and has been marked by several museum retrospectives since 1995. In 1999, he was included in “100 Years/100 Artists: Views of the 20th Century in South Carolina Arts,” the South Carolina State Museum’s look back at the 20th century.

Carl Blair's Flora & Fauna: Preview

Fandango, 2006
Acrylic on canvas
20 x 17 1/2 in
$2,900

Burst Of Spring, 1986
Oil on canvas
30 x 36 in
$5,500

Missing You, 2006

Acrylic on canvas

17 x 17 inches

$ 2,800

My Heart Is Longing For Home, 2009

Acrylic on canvas

20 x 24 inches

$ 3,400

I'm Saving All My Love Just For You, 2007

Acrylic on gesso and board

9 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches

$ 1,050

Last Goodbye, 2008

Acrylic on canvas

20 x 24 inches

$ 3,400

Eighth Of September, 2008

Acrylic on canvas

20 x 24 inches

$ 3,400

Winter- Last Light, 2005

Oil on canvas

20 x 24 inches

$ 3,400

Recompense, 2007

Acrylic on canvas

20 x 24 inches

$ 3,400

I'm On My Way, 2006

Acrylic on canvas

24 x 20 inches

$ 3,400

August Daydream, 1994

Acrylic and oil on canvas

30 x 40 inches

SOLD

Breaking Your Heart In Two, 2008

Acrylic on panel

10 x 10 inches

$ 1,050

Behold- The Evening Cometh, 2005

Acrylic on canvas

40 x 40 inches

$ 7,000

Drums Of War, 2002

Acrylic on canvas

19 x 19 inches

$ 3,000

No Reason Left To Stay, 2009

Acrylic on canvas

20 x 24 inches

$ 3,400

Don't You Weep, 2007

Acrylic on canvas

20 x 24 inches

$ 3,400

Signs Of The Times, 2005
Mixed media on board
7 x 11 in.
$ 900

I Think I Play Snowy Day, 2003
Mixed media on paper
13 x 17 inches
$ 1,900

Miles To Go Before I Sleep, 2007

Acrylic on paper

22 x 30 inches

$ 3,800

Run For Your Life, 2008
Crayon (pencil)
4 x 5 3/4 inches
$ 450

When Will We Ever Learn, 2008
Crayon/ink on board
4 x 5 3/4 inches
$ 450

It's Been Good To Know You, 2008
Crayon on paper
4 x 5 3/4 inches
$ 450

I've Got To Be Drifting Along, 2007
Gouache on paper
4 x 5 inches
SOLD

Evening Joy, 2007
Gouache on paper
3 3/4 x 5 inches
$ 450

Evening Dream, 2006
Gouache on paper
3 3/4 x 5 inches
SOLD

I'll See You Again Next Year, 2009
Gouache on paper
4 1/2 x 6 1/4 inches
$ 450

Last Touch Of Day, 2007
Gouache on board
4 x 5 inches
$ 450

At Wits End, 2008

Polychrome wood

31 1/2 x 31 1/2 x 26 inches

$ 6,500

The Valedictorian, 2007
Polychrome wood
35 x 29 1/2 x 16 1/2 inches
$ 6,500

Tied To His Mother's Apron Strings, 2008

Polychrome wood

20 1/2 x 24 x 12 inches

$ 2,500

Bill, He Yaps A Lot But He Don't Say Much, 2008

Polychrome wood

15 1/4 x 6 1/2 x 23 1/2 inches

$ 2,900

Zero, 2008

Polychrome wood

32 x 43 x 12 1/2 inches

$ 5,800

Help, I've Got Something Stuck In My Bad Eye, But My Leg Feels A Lot Better, 2008

Polychrome wood

23 x 28 x 15 inches

$ 3,100

The Dope, 2007

Polychrome wood

16 1/4 x 14 1/2 x 25 inches

$ 3,100

Hey, I Was Here First, 2008

Polychrome wood

20 1/2 x 20 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches

$ 2,900

Seems Like Someone Is Always Saying Goodbye, 2008
Polychrome wood
13 1/4 x 11 1/4 x 15 inches
$ 1,800

Ow, My Goiter Hurts Me So, 2008
Polychrome wood
25 x 23 x 11 1/2 inches
$ 3,500

Jimmy Crack Corn, 2008
Polychrome wood
19 1/4 x 15 1/2 x 13 inches
$ 3,100

Freaked Out, 2008
Polychrome wood
10 3/4 x 11 x 11 3/4 inches
$ 1,200

Delusions Of Grandeur, 2008
Polychrome wood
18 3/4 x 11 1/4 x 17 1/4 inches
$ 3,100

Billy Goat Gruff, 2007
Polychrome wood
18 x 15 ½ x 11 ½ inches
$ 2,100