Patchwork: Recent Drawings by Ric Ambrose
Opening April 8, 2022
Juliet Art Museum

In April we welcome California artist Ric Ambrose back to Charleston for an exhibition of his recent monumental drawings!  Ambrose was the longtime curator at Sunrise Museum and then served as the director of exhibitions here at the Clay Center. He has taught studio art at multiple colleges throughout the country and has curated over 300 exhibitions in art, science, and history.  Now, he is known for large-scale, seemingly photographic drawings of everyday life which he creates using only graphite and an eraser.  However, the images are a bit unsettling upon close exmination; each scene is an amalgamation constructed to form specific messages.  Ambrose states,

“The patchwork of urban elements in my immediate surroundings holds tremendous fascination for me.  I am particularly struck by the ironies and paradoxes found in both the micro and macro world that surrounds us.  After twenty-five plus years in the museum profession, a move to the Bay Area in 2007 rejuvenated my desire to re-draw my personal world.  My panoramic drawings are a compilation of disparate images stitched together and interwoven into an introspective tableau, reconstructing partial memories or recollected experiences.”

Ambrose will present a public lecture about his work on Friday evening, April 8, at 5:30pm in the Caperton Planetarium and Theater followed by an opening reception where guests can view the exhibition.

This exhibit is presented with support from the The Elliot Family Foundation, Daywood Foundation, Herscher Foundation, Bernard H. and Blanche E. Jacobson Foundation, Fund for the Arts (The Clay Center salutes the following major donors to Fund for the Arts whose annual gifts of $10,000 or more help keep all the arts thriving in our area including City of Charleston, Cecil I. Walker Charitable Foundation, Daywood Foundation, Spilman, Thomas & Battle PLLC),  the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture, and History and the National Endowment for the Arts, with approval from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts.