Columbia City Paper

Some of Columbia’s most successful and well-known artists have come
together to present their new work to the public. The Ninth Annual
Winter Exhibition opened Friday, Jan. 23 at Gallery 80808 with
participating artists Stephen Chesley, Mike Williams, Edward Wimberly,
and David Yaghjian. This year’s exhibit will feature oil and acrylic
paintings, drawings and sculpture.

Chesley, Williams, and Wimberly held their first winter group exhibition after the 2001-2002 holiday season. For their second show, in January 2003, they invited Yaghjian who just moved to Columbia from Atlanta.
“Stephen, Ed and I saw his work and admired it. And we liked David personally, so we thought he would be a good addition to our group. That’s really what this is all about. It’s a group of artists who are friends, admire each other’s skills, feel they all maintain high professional and artistic standards, and have an affinity for each other personally,” says Williams.
Chesley is a formal landscape artist turned to Abstract Expressionism in the past few years, but the elements of southern landscape painting can still be found in some of his work. Using ground coal from the actual Titanic, gum arabic binder and rainwater, Chesley created some of his works to explore the tragedy of the Titanic and its passengers.
Mike Williams is another abstract painter and sculptor. The Sumter native grew up hunting and fishing in the swamps and marshes, so the outdoors became a natural theme in a lot of his art. The current exhibition, features some of his unusually small pieces together with his larger canvases and sculptures.
Edward Wimberly, born, raised, and living in St. Matthews presents his imaginative surrealistic works and unusual environments in foam frames. Wimberly reserves straightforward portrait painting for commissioned work, his second line of art production. Doing commissioned portraits for decades is now beginning to have an impact on his exhibition art.

David Yaghjian, who used to be known as an urban painter that focused on mostly architectural pieces, is now focusing on his middle-aged “every man” figure. (The “every man” moniker was not given by Yaghjian, for the record). The figure, often in alternating awkward and energetic positions in more urban environments, is featured standing naked in a forest in this series, sometimes with a female figure.
“The reason behind the figure appearing naked is just simplicity,” says Yaghjian. “It is more universal this way. The addition of the female figure serves as a balance, not only visually but also emotionally on my paintings.”
Shedding the few remaining pieces of clothing are not the only changes that can be observed in the figure; his “features” and personality seem to growing, too. In the older works, the figure had no distinct facial features, today the viewer will discover his face and his emotions. Despite the undeniable similarity between the artist’s face and his “every man,” Yaghjian says that the figure is much more universal.
“The reason behind the similarity is just the simple fact that I am a model who is always available,” Yaghjian smiled.

The exhibit can be viewed during gallery hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 1 until 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays until February 3, 2009.  The gallery is located at 808 Lady Street in Columbia.

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