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Brilliant exhibition opens at CCU in January

December 21, 2011

Coastal Carolina University’s Rebecca Randall Bryan Art Gallery will exhibit "Weaving, Stacking, Staining," a large-scale work by visiting artist Jonathan Brilliant. Visitors to the gallery can watch the artist at work Jan. 9 to 19. An opening with the artist will be held Thursday, Jan. 19 from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. The work will remain on display through Feb. 17.

Brilliant's site-specific sculptures and installations use traditional weaving and common materials to transform spaces into lyrical environments.

The Charleston native, is the South Carolina Arts Commission Fellow for 2011-2012 and received a prestigious Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant in 2011. He has created sculptural installations at Universities and Galleries throughout the country including McColl Center for Visual Art, The Ox-Bow School of Art, The Vermont Studio Center, The Penland School of Crafts, The Redux Contemporary Art Center, The University of Oklahoma, The Visual Arts Center of Richmond and The East/West Project in Berlin Germany. Brilliant earned a bachelor's degree in studio art from the College of Charleston and an M.F.A. in spatial arts from San Jose State University.

Brilliant's monumental-scale installations are created using objects found in the contemporary coffee shop. Using only weaving and tension, mundane objects are converted into extravagant creations.

"In this ongoing series of work," says Brilliant, "I continue to explore my sense that the coffee shop and related consumer environs are more organic and nurturing than the 'real' natural environment. Wooden coffee stir sticks woven in place with tension, coffee cup sleeves stacked inside of one another and coffee grounds pressed into the wall combine to create a series of compositional elements designed to activate the entire gallery space.”

Hours of the gallery are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday as of Jan. 3. For more information visit http://www.coastal.edu/bryanartgallery and http://www.jonathanbrilliant.com.