Summer 2023 Gallery Exhibitions

ArtFields Hosts New Artwork from Haney, Stallings, Umoja

Lake City transitions seamlessly from their annual April event into their year-round art offerings with three new gallery exhibitions. Visit each week Tuesday through Saturday from 11AM – 5PM. Admission is free!

Lake City, SC–ArtFields is proud to present three new exhibitions featuring the work of Lou Haney, Bree Stallings, and Cedric Umoja. The shows fill over 5,000 square feet of gallery space and are part of the year-round offerings of the ArtFields Collective, host of the annual ArtFields event each April.

Each artist brings a unique perspective to the gallery spaces and allows for visitors to explore many different types of artworks. Immerse yourself in a multimedia display that’s part of Cedric Umoja’s SMOKE HOUSE, admire Lou Haney’s colorful exploration into memory and femininity, or take a walk with Bree Stallings through nature’s beauty.

Technicolor by Lou Haney, ArtFields 2022 Exhibition Award Winner, is on display in Jones-Carter Gallery. Her artwork depicts domestic spaces that employ nostalgia as a means of temporary escape from the corrupt and chaotic realities of present-day life. Using oil, acrylic, fiber art, and mixed media, she explores themes of memory, yearning, and femininity to evoke tension between fantasy and reality.

“My work stems from nostalgia with an element of escapism entwined with the deep longing for the perceived innocence of the past, especially when reality may feel corrupt and fragmented,” Haney explains. “Looking backward can offer comfort and painting and viewing the past can feel like a vacation from the present, no matter how problematic the preceding decades.”

Bree Stallings’ Dreamscapes, in TRAX Visual Art Center, showcases a flora and fauna series began during her artist residency at Olive Stack Gallery in the small town of Listowel, County Kerry, Ireland in February of 2022 and ended at her residency in the even smaller town of Orquevaux, France in February 2023. At the end of a traumatic winter, she was interested in creating “dreamscapes”, landscape paintings of places that don’t quite exist – vivid, soft, multi-layered, and safe.

“The animals chosen for this series were inspired by my Japanese and Irish/Scottish heritage and the animals that exist in either of those extreme places, and sometimes, more interestingly, the animals that exist in both places or migrate between the two,” Stallings shared.

SMOKE HOUSE, by Cedric Umoja, is on display in TRAX Visual Art Center and explores the traditions, practices, rituals, and ideas centered around the SMOKE HOUSE. A symbol of preservation and protection amongst those who lived in rural communities, as a means of sustaining one’s history, family, and self.

“This exhibition is special to me because it’s a culmination of what I’ve been working on for the last five years!’ Umoja said. “The questions I’ve been exploring are finally in deep conversation.”

“I make drawings, paintings, found material sculptures, murals, collages, site-based installation work, and most recently, ritual performance film work. These mediums allow me to critically explore a Black Speculative future while honoring and paying homage to a Black past.” Umoja said of his artwork.

Enjoy a day at the galleries this summer at TRAX Visual Art Center or Jones-Carter Gallery. These exhibitions are on display until August 12th and galleries are open each week Tuesday – Saturday from 11AM to 5PM. Admission is free.

Visit artfieldssc.org, call 843-374-0180, or check out ArtFields on social media to learn more and plan your visit!

About the Artists:

Lou Haney

Born in Decatur, Alabama, Haney received her Bachelor of Arts in Art with a Studio Concentration, cum laude from Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, and her MFA in Painting from Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. Haney has attended MacDowell as well as the Vermont Studio Center. In 2022, she was a resident at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in Amherst, Virginia. Haney was the recipient of the Mississippi Art Commission Individual Artist Fellowship in 2008. Her work has been exhibited in solo shows in California, Virginia, Massachusetts, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Kentucky and in over 60 juried group exhibitions. Her painting, “Bedlam,” was exhibited in the Made in VA show at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art and ArtFields 2022 in Lake City, SC. In September 2022, Haney’s work was shown at the Spring/Break Art Fair in New York City. Haney currently teaches Studio Art and Art History at Piedmont Virginia Community College, Sweet Briar College, and Buford Middle School. Haney lives and works in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Bree Stallings

Breanna “Bree” Stallings is North Carolina-native multi-media artist, illustrator, writer, and activist. Bree graduated from Queens University of Charlotte in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in Studio Art and Creative Writing. She resides near uptown Charlotte where she works as a painter, illustrator, and muralist. Currently, she serves as the Director of Artistic Experiences at Blumenthal Performing Arts Center. Using art as her vehicle, she raises awareness for many causes that affect her life and those closest to her such as economic mobility, displacement, and environmental consciousness. Her personal work uses storytelling and motifs to examine the meanings of race, class, memory, and connection. Through the programs, curated art shows, and fundraisers she has helped put on, Bree, alongside her creative team and partnerships with Project Art Aid, Behailu Academy, the Mecklenburg County Health Department, Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, and many more has helped raise over $4,000,000 for furthering development in Charlotte’s art and humanities scene. In recent news, her partnership with the Mecklenburg County Health Department and students at Behailu Academy has provided the opportunity for 2 large-scale public art murals in designated “food deserts” to highlight the pressing issue of food insecurity in our communities. She is also a HATCH Intensive Training Cohort Fellow as sponsored by C4 Atlanta, Artist As Change Agent Fellow of 2019 as sponsored by EmcArts, Artists Campaign School of 2017 (Detroit, MI) Fellow as sponsored by Fractured Atlas, the 2018 GOLD Alumni Award Winner from Queens University of Charlotte and the 2017 Outstanding Leader In The Arts Award Winner from The Arts Empowerment Project. Her 2019 solo exhibition “Where I’m From” won “Best Art Show of the Year” by Queen City Nerve and her 2020 solo exhibition “To Be Seen And Celebrated” sold 135 paintings to benefit the Brookhill Village Vision Fund. She also recently wrapped up Gaston County’s largest mural project called “Flourish” in partnership with the United Way and has been awarded a Cultural Vision Grant 2020 from the Arts + Science Council to complete a project called “Holding Space” with Time Out Youth.

Cedric Umoja

Cedric Umoja is a Columbia, S.C. based multidisciplinary artist who seeks to enact alchemical change through the use of letter forms, found materials and archetypal totems. Umoja bridges ancient and future in his drawings, paintings, murals, sculptures, film, installation work and performance.

His influences include Dondi White, Betye Saar, Max Beckmann, Rammellezee, Sun Ra and Jack Whitten. Umoja attended the Art Institute of Atlanta, he later apprenticed under Yale MFA and veteran fine artist, Tony Cacalano. He gained the gift of Tony’s tutelage under Jack Tworkov, one of the founders of the famed New York School. Umoja’s work features elements of Post Graffiti, Post Expressionism, Afro Surrealism, Modern and African art.