Beginning with a public reception on Saturday, March 13, and continuing through May 26, the Florence Museum will exhibit works by Charleston artist Mary Edna Fraser.
Collected and exhibited worldwide, her works have been featured at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, the National Academy of Sciences and Duke University Museum of Art.
Fraser specializes in large-scale batiks on silk, a process that she has explored for over 30 years. The majority of Fraser's compositions are sourced from her own aerial photographs of places where the interplay between waterways and landscapes create complex networks of tidal pools, channels and islands. The title of the exhibit, Terraqueous Silks, references the relationship between these elements.
"Several works in the exhibit are based on places that many South Carolinians may be familiar with, but from a different perspective," said museum curator Stephen Motte. "It's the change in perspective that really makes Mary Edna's art happen."
One of the signature pieces, Great Pee Dee River, was inspired by the recent interest in developing a coal power plant along the river's edge in southern Florence County. The plans for the proposed plant were suspended for later review by the board members of Santee Cooper in August 2009.
Terraqueous Silks spans 16 years of Fraser's work with the subject of land, water and sky, but her familiarity with seeing the earth from above goes back to her childhood. Her father, a recreational pilot, would take the family on regular visits to her grandmother's home in his 415c Ercoupe, which has remained in the family since 1947.
"This plane is Fraser's primary source of aerial transportation and is integral to her process," Motte said. "Artists whose process is unique and meaningful to them tend to produce work that is equal to that process."
Visitors to the exhibit will also get to see some of Fraser's most recent works based on photographs taken in Australia where she conducted batik workshops and presented lectures at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.
Her career-long research into the traditions of ukiyo-e woodblock prints and textiles have been a continual influence that can be seen in her work which uses Japanese kimono silks.
"Photography, textile art, printmaking, history, ecology; I think Mary Edna Fraser's broad range of interests will appeal to a broad audience," Motte said. "Fraser is the kind of artist who is
too good to miss and she's from South Carolina. We're very pleased to be able to host this exhibit."
The Florence Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m.
Opening reception for Terraqueous Silks will be from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Saturday, March 13. The reception will be free and open to the public. The Florence Museum receives support from the
South Carolina Arts Commission, which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts.
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