The latest artist to be featured in The Nook, the collaborative gallery space by the Jasper Project and the Koger Center for the Arts, is Alicia Leeke. The Nook is the newest location in the growing family of Jasper Galleries.
The body of work Leeke will exhibit during her time in the Nook is titled the Abstract Landscape/Cityscape series. She drew inspiration from the French Salon painters and how they captured history, social conscience, and architecture by painting the people and environments surrounding them. Many of the works in this series were painted during Leeke’s plein-air painting sessions. The act of traveling to each of these locations and taking in the sights and experiences around her helped immensely and led Leeke to create a body of beautiful impressionistic paintings inspired by nature’s ever-changing scenery and the idea of being in a familiar place but looking at and experiencing it in a different lens.
Leeke is a South Carolina based painter incorporating research-related imagery into her artwork. Originally a biology major and former graphic designer, she uses digital technology to blend her passions of art and science. Her evolution from painting to new media pushes the boundaries of her work even further. Leeke was awarded grants by the Joan Mitchell Foundation in New York City, the South Carolina Arts Commission, and a grant by the Charleston Scientific and Cultural Education Fund to produce a traveling exhibition entitled: View from Under the Microscope: Science-based Learning Through Art. The exhibition educates the non-scientific community about the importance plankton play in our life and
why we need to be good stewards of our water bodies. She is an international, award-winning artist whose work is collected around the globe from New York City to Finland, and Austria to Dubai.
The opening reception for the exhibit will take place on Thursday, October 19 from 4:30 – 6 p.m., prior to the Koger Center’s closing performance of Come From Away. The Koger Center gallery spaces—the Nook and the Upstairs Gallery—are open from Monday through Friday, 9-5 p.m. and an hour prior to any Koger Center performance.