Columbia City Paper

Art + Cayce’s newest exhibition features ceramic and mixed media sculptures and assemblages. 

When one enters the gallery, Andrew Norton Weber’s sculptures immediately demand attention. The subject matter of the mixed media assemblages can be hard to discern. Yet, the abstracts include some of the most intriguing objects one could conceive to use for a sculpture. Wall assemblages feature anything from plastic toys, flowers and fruits to random objects made of melted wire. The final result is less a sculpture and more a visual journey. 

Robin Jones grew up in Columbia and went to USC before moving to Boston to study art history at Harvard.  Finally the artist moved back to Columbia in 2002 and has been working and exhibiting here since. The Harvard-educated sculptor works with a variety of media including stone, ceramics and bronze. 

Jones’ black and white ceramics create his own wonderland with fantastic chess pieces and futuristic igloos.  Jones is fascinated by geometric shapes and the possibility to utilize not only the medium and also the space around it.

“Most of the ceramics in this show were conceived as models for much larger structures which one could walk through,” Jones said. 

Viewing his chessboard ceramic, one can only imagine walking among the huge chess pieces on a shiny chessboard like walking around marble columns.  Jones therefore not only engages the viewers mentally and aesthetically but also physically. Some of the artist’s latest projects are designed in a way that allows viewers to move the pieces and rearrange them, making it an interactive artwork.

While Jones creates futuristic fantasies, he remains loyal to his signature dynamics: the contrasts between straight lines and curves inspired by nature. 

“Artistic creation is very much part of nature: for what are we if not nature?” he said. 

ART + Cayce provides art lovers in the Columbia area with a serious of outstanding exhibitions. This exhibit can be viewed until October 8 at Cayce Art Gallery on State Street. The next show will feature Suzy Scarborough’s paintings starting October 8. 

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