Virginia Russo Joins Saul Seibert for Artists Showing Artists THIS THURSDAY

For the first installation of the Jasper Project’s Artists Showing Artists series taking place this Thursday night at 7 at The Living Room, Saul Seibert chose Artist Virginia Russo as one of the artists he would like to feature. 

Kara Virginia Russo is a visual and performance artist who grew up in the tiny lake towns of 1980's central Florida, before moving north and earning a BFA from Converse College in Spartanburg, SC. After living for a while in both Asia and Europe, she returned to settle with her husband and two children in South Carolina, where she splits her time as an artist between Columbia and Greenville. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions from Charleston to Asheville.  

Most recently, she collaborated on Zion: a Composition by Saul Seibert, contributing album art, projection visuals, merchandise design and creation, and live ritual based performance art.

According to Russo, “My job as an artist is primarily to SEE, and only secondarily to communicate what I see. In expressing what is unseen (both within and without), I have found it helpful to use the visual language of an inner world I think of simply as The Planet. I like to explore the tension of navigating the wild terrain of the unseen from the safety of the imaginary. Think of my work as paintings, photographs, and explorer’s notes from a place you’ve never been, but one which feels immediately familiar.

“My pieces are built of layers upon layers of wet in wet watercolor and ink, relying on long experience to predict what the unleashed media might do, while staying open to surprise. Over the wet media (or occasionally under), I layer pencil, oil and chalk pastel, collage, and embroidery. I think of the wet media as attempts to paint mystery, and the dry media as attempts to expound and interpret to myself what I have painted, like notes in the margin of a well-loved book.” 

Russo continues, “My collaboration with Saul on Zion happened one day while he was looking at some of my recent work. I remember him sending me a message in response to some pieces that read simply, "I know this place."  I felt the same way the first time I heard the beginnings of the music. The work we've done together has been based on that ever since. We are artistically walking the same landscape. I see my role as simply making visible what is already there inside the music. When I listen to Zion, I'm transported to this place that is unique to Zion but is set in some other corner of my own imaginary world that all my work comes from. I can walk around, explore, see the features of this world, and then come back and paint it. The performance art is the same, I use the body as an instrument to convey visually the emotions and narrative of the piece in real time for the audience at live shows. I contribute all visual art for the project, from designing and hand printing the shirts, to the album art, to the bank of film that Ash Lennox, who does our live visual sets, pulls from. It's an incredible piece of music, and I still can't believe I get to collaborate on it. The musicians are phenomenal, I'm blown away every single time they play it.  

“Zion as a project was more or less part of my life as an artist for two years, from the very beginning of the project. It provided the steady thread all through an overseas move back to America, and all the transition that came with it. Zion stayed the same, I think the project kept me sane.  

“When the collaboration began, I had only been making art again for a year after a decade long hiatus. Zion provided the framework I needed to find my voice and confidence. I would ask Saul his opinion, and he would just say that he trusted me completely. I had complete artistic freedom, which was intimidating at first, but challenged me to grow as an artist in ways I'm grateful for. I grew into the project, in a sense. Every now and then, Saul would say something like "wouldn't it be cool if..." and I knew I was about to learn to do something I didn't think I could do. I picked up whole skill sets I had never tried before, ranging from stop motion, to illustration, to block printing. Saul had such confidence in my abilities, anything seemed possible. On top of that, Columbia has welcomed me into the creative community, and I can't imagine making art without all this support.” 

Join Jasper on Thursday night as we facilitate Rebekah Corbett’s project, Artists Showing Artists with Saul Seibert. Saul has invited poet-songwriters, Alyssa Stewart, and NoN (Keith Smyly), as well as his band King Saul and the Heretics. Art will be on display and available for sale by Virginia Russo, Adam Corbett, and Emily Moffitt. 

Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 at the door. 

The Living Room, 6729 Two Notch Road #70, Columbia, SC, 29223

Tickets

jasperproject.org/artists-showing-artists/tickets

Refillable Jasper cups for beer and wine will be available for $10 as well as hotdogs and a selection of baked goods. 

All proceeds go toward supporting the Jasper Project’s mission.

Artists Showing Artists: A Night with Saul Seibert and Friends

Jasper is excited to introduce a new event series, Artists Showing Artists, where we invite a local artist to curate an evening of their favorite artists from different disciplines. Our hope is that the series will give fans a chance to get to know the featured artist better through seeing the local artists who inspire them, while also highlighting these lesser-known creators. Our first event will be March 23rd at The Living Room from 7–9pm, and we are featuring local musician and writer Saul Siebert as our curator. He has invited a selection of poet-songwriters, visual artists, and his band—King Saul and the Heretics—to perform.

Performers

Saul Seibert

Seibert is a performer, writer and composer from New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the former singer and songwriter for South Carolina's veteran punk rock band, Boo Hag. Seibert has contributed musical scores to various commercials as well as independent cult classic films such as, "Party Hardy" and last year's award-winning film, "Bad Girls". His most recent work can be heard in the popular mainstream film He's All That. In 2022, Seibert’s musical arrangements and compositions were adapted to the much-anticipated video game Bugs and Boo Hags. In 2023, Seibert released the instrumental concept album, Zion, A Composition Acts 1, 2, & 3. Currently Seibert resides in Columbia, SC, and is writing and recording a record set to release in 2023 under the name King Saul and The Heretics. He has been a contributing writer to Jasper Magazine and the popular blog Manifestation Station. Smoke weed. Live free. 

Alyssa Stewart

Steward is a Poet and Songwriter who has naturalized to Columbia over the past twenty-five years. On her art she says, “I’m so glad to serve whatever work comes to me—be it writing, singing, dancing, or any other form of creative expression, and grateful for the abundance of communities around town in which to share. I would be less myself without my friends and family.”

NoN (Keith Smyly)

The genre known as "alternative" Hip Hop is a meandering path that leads listeners in many different directions. Within it, there is such a vast array of so many styles that one would question whether or not the artists that make it up could be classified as a singular art form. The ties that bind these practitioners together is in its cerebral poeticism, its complete disregard for conventional subject matter and its use of typically untraditional soundscapes. NoN, Columbia based Hip Hop project, conceptualized in its entirety by musician/writer Keith Smyly, sits comfortably in this "genre." With the release of two EPs—"Elusive Positive Aspects” and “Random Acts”—along with a full-length release titled So Lame, NoN set out to be the tie that binds humanity together with his lyrics. His leave no one out approach saw him pen songs like "Hearse Surfer," which seamlessly connected topics like child mental health, a failing class system, organized religion, and death; to "Pride, Dice and Chips," which recognizes the burdens and difficulty of putting philosophical questions of self and honesty into art; to "Free Mustache Rides," an homage to a favorite sexual past time. With a new release entitled Picture Album in the works, NoN will keep it personal but not to the exclusion of listeners: "I make people music. I try to pull from very, very personal experiences with the idea that most folks go through similar things. Human emotion is human emotion. And, while positive aspects may be elusive, they do exist." NoN. It is an alternative…to whatever else it is you’re listening to. 

Visual Artists

Art will be on display and available to purchase from the following artists:

Kara Virginia Russo

Russo is an abstract mixed media and interdisciplinary artist, whose work deals with themes of mysticism and spiritual reality. After earning her BFA from Converse College in 2005, she lived in Asia and Europe before returning to settle in South Carolina with her husband and two children. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Columbia, Greenville, and Charleston. 

Adam Corbett

Corbett is a multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter and visual artist from Lexington, South Carolina. After releasing numerous records, helping to produce a musical, and taking a break from his career as a music teacher, Corbett branched out into visual art as a way to cope with the COVID-19 lockdown. Throughout that period, he has experimented with various mediums in a variety of formats focusing always on exploration, play, and following his muse.

Emily Moffitt

Moffitt is a recent graduate of the University of South Carolina's School of Visual Art and Design. Growing up, she always found enjoyment through sketching and drawing her own original characters or art based on her favorite books and video games. Now as a young artist, she aims to blend the realms of fine art and illustration through her work, always experimenting with new techniques and materials to create new works. As she gets older, she continues to learn how events from a person's life can shape their art and style, for better or worse. Her favorite media to work with include ink pens, India ink, and gouache, and she values the power of mark making through these tools.

Tickets for the event are $12 in advance—and can be purchased online—and will be $15 at the door.
Refillable Jasper cups for beer and wine will be available for $10 as well as hotdogs and a selection of baked goods.
All proceeds go toward supporting the Jasper Project’s mission.