Six well-known Lowcountry artists are having a homecoming of sorts at the Arts Center this fall, reuniting to present their second major exhibition in the Walter Greer Gallery. 
New Directions, running through Oct. 30, features works by Martha Worthy, Louanne LaRoche, Lynn Parrott, Kevin Lawless, Betsy Chaffin and Brucie Holler, longtime friends who share a love of the Lowcountry and a passion for the visual arts.
“Like minds attract,” said LaRoche, a Bluffton artist and former owner of The Red Piano Gallery. “We like each other, and we like each other’s work.”
Worthy described it as “an ongoing conversation” among artists who occasionally paint together.
LaRoche’s paintings are more reflective of events and images from the past – a marsh tacky horserace, dancing around the maypole, a First Communion.
“It’s a mixed bag,” said the artist, whose paintings and prints have made it into the private collections of celebrities such as musician John Mellencamp, director Francis Ford Coppola and actor George C. Scott. “My work is a journal of what is going on in my mind.”
Lynn Parrott, a well-known water colorist, now enjoys painting large-scale abstract oils that offer more than a representational image of a Lowcountry scene.
“I try to catch the mood of the landscape at a particular moment in time,” said Parrott, whose work has been featured in numerous prestigious exhibitions, including the South Carolina Watercolor Society Juried Show. “It could be of a storm coming up in the ocean or the marsh in the morning light. It’s what I feel painting that moment in the day.”
The sole male artist in the show is metal craftsman Kevin Lawless, whose humorous forged sculptures include “Wilson,” a large lanky bird on a bench looking confused as he tries to work his cell phone.
“You’ve got to have humor in your art,” Lawless said. “After all, we’re not solving the world’s problems. It’s eye candy. I want the seven seconds a person spends looking at the sculpture to be pleasant ones.”
For more information, visit www.artshhi.com.
