“Brooklyn Painters,” an exhibit of work by Brooklyn-based artists, will be on display through Monday, Nov. 30 at Coastal Carolina University’s Rebecca Randall Bryan Art Gallery. Admission is free and open to the public. The gallery, located in the Thomas W. and Robin W. Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts is open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The exhibit, organized by Bryan Gallery Director Cynthia Farnell, will feature eight painters who live and work in Brooklyn, N.Y. : Jon Elliott, Lynn Hassan, Marci MacGuffie, Rob Nadeau, Robert Rust, Gail Stoicheff, Mika Yokobori and Daniel Zeller.

Farnell selected many of the paintings in this exhibition during a 24-hour visit to Brooklyn in June 2009. “The time limit gave the experience an appropriate tension, considering the edgy themes that run through all of the work,” said Farnell. “Nothing is static — a reflection of the urban experience. In the city life becomes a series of gestures, broad strokes and intensity.”

The painters may differ in their processes and formal strategies but they share an awareness of community, according to Farnell. “Whether manifested in the webs and cells of Yokobori’s and Zeller’s work, or in the carefully orchestrated and tenuous assembly of chance by MacGuffie, Nadeau and Rust, the canvas is a common field where diverse players coalesce. Stoicheff, Hassan and Elliott turn inward, exploring diasporic identities through the mediated image, myth and apocalyptic landscape. In all, spatial ambiguity and shifting figure/ground relationships echo the dynamics of contemporary life."

This project is funded by the South Carolina Arts Commission, which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding came from the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund of the Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina. Bryan Gallery programs are funded in part by the Coastal Educational Foundation and The Friends of Bryan Gallery.

Contact Bryan Gallery Director Cynthia Farnell for more information: 843-234-3466. Visit the web site: http://www.coastal.edu/bryanartgallery/.