Columbia City Paper

Greenville native, Carl Blair, presents abstract paintings and wooden sculptures in his brand new “Flora & Fauna” exhibition at if ART Gallery. Imagination mixes with wild color to produce this extraordinary collection by an artist who only discovered his color-blindness in college. After he began to study art he started wearing a red contact lens in his left eye to help to distinguish colors. While colors are obviously integral to painting, so, too, are dynamism and passion. Blair has both.  The colorful waves and thick lines blend effortlessly to create landscapes that are not detail-focused, but centered around color and shape.
Blair refers to his style as neither realistic nor abstract. “I refer to my work as visual poetry,” he says.

Living in the countryside in the Upstate heavily influences Blair’s
artwork. Even though the hills seem to almost melt together on the
canvas, woods often just black spots on the painting, rivers reduced to
blue curves and the sun often taking over the sky almost completely,
his use of color brings the landscapes alive.
Although best known for his oil, gouache, and acrylic paintings, late
in his career, Blair began exhibiting sculpture, especially whimsical
animals crafted of plywood or spruce pine boards. He recalled telling
his Bob Jones University students to “never, never grow up and take
yourself seriously.” Farm animals also show up in Blair’s exhibitions. 
His wooden bird sculptures makes one wonder if he spent time living in
a jungle observing exotic animals, or simply grew up around roosters
and with a very colorful imagination.
“Flora & Fauna” can be seen through May 9 at if ART Gallery on
Lincoln Street. The exhibition also will be on view during Artista
Vista 2009, April 23-25.

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