Art Reception Double Feature with the Jasper Project and the Koger Center

By Emily Moffitt, Visual Arts Editor, Jasper Magazine

The Koger Center for the Arts is excited to bring its patrons two new art exhibits in its second-floor gallery spaces: the Gallery at the Koger Center and The Nook, the latter of which is presented by the Jasper Project.

On April 10, join the Koger Center in celebrating Colin Dodd and Sarah Scruggs for their new art exhibits! There will be a joint opening reception for the two shows that evening from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public, and complimentary wine and light fare will be available.

Sarah Scruggs is the newest artist to take up residence in the Nook at the Koger Center. Sarah is a South Carolinian painter focusing on oil and watercolor. Her alla prima style is relaxed and playful, with attention to color. Most always, her paintings are a celebration of storms, the ever-changing clouds, flora, and fauna. Many of her materials are hand ground pigments collected from local areas in the pursuit of play. She has sold/exhibited her work at multiple art fairs like Cottontown Art Crawl and the Brandywine Festival in Harrodsburg, KY. Her work will be on display through early May.

Colin Dodd is exhibiting a new body of work in the Gallery at the Koger Center, titled Homage to Ukraine: Big Bavovna and Other Works. The exhibit began on March 24 and is on display through June 7, 2026. Colin Dodd was born in Northumberland and grew up in Newcastle upon Tyne. As a young teenager his interest in art began to develop and he decided to go to art college as soon as he finished high school. He first attended Leicester Polytechnic and then Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham, where he completed an undergraduate degree in fine art. After two visits to the U.S. he moved permanently in 1980. He attended the University of South Carolina and completed a graduate degree in 1984. In the same year, he began teaching at Midlands Tech as an adjunct instructor. This position eventually became full time and he taught classes in drawing, painting, art history, and Film as Art until his retirement in 2018.

Homage to Ukraine Artist Statement:

It’s the artist’s duty to reflect the times in which we live.” – Nina Simone.

This quote struck a chord with me, especially due to personal circumstances. Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th, 2022, and by coincidence that was the day I had open heart surgery, following a heart attack on February 22nd! I watched the footage on CNN of Russian tanks firing on civilian targets from my hospital bed. I have since followed the war on an almost daily basis, strongly identifying with the cause of the Ukrainian people, and seeing in them a nation standing alone against a tyrant just as Britain did against Hitler’s Germany at the outset of World War II.  Ukraine has managed to survive, against all the odds, for four years.

The imagery from FPV drone footage I found strangely alluring and fascinating, even beautiful, although the results and intended consequences were destruction and death. This dichotomy is what led me to start painting images based on often distorted and grainy images, abstracted to a degree, by the process of recording and transmission. This resulted in a twenty-panel work resembling a bank of monitors, titled Homage to Ukraine: Big Bavovna.   In addition, a triptych dedicated to Ukraine consists of a portrait of a young Ukrainian woman wearing a traditional flower crown, titled Flower of Ukraine.  An image of trench warfare reminiscent of images from the First World War and I borrowed the title We Are Making a New World from Paul Nash who was an official war artist in both world wars. Lastly, an image derived from a video taken in 2023 in the Donetsk region, of a Russian ammo dump explosion, which became known as, Ammo Dump Jesus.

As the war has progressed it seems like it has been largely forgotten about by the news cycle which moves on unrelentingly, but the struggle and the suffering continues for the Ukrainian people.

For more information about the visual arts at the Koger Center, inquiries can be directed to kogercenter@sc.edu. The gallery spaces are available for public viewing Monday-Friday, 9 am – 5 pm, and an hour before any performance in the center.

Koger Center Opens Colin Dodd Exhibition on Artistic Freedom and Expression

On Wednesday, April 12, from 6pm–8pm, the Koger Center is opening a new show in their Upstairs Gallery by local artist Colin Dodd. The show, titled Artists and Autocrats, explores the tension between those who have the freedom to create art and those who have limited the creation of art. 

Dodd was born in Northumberland and grew up in Newcastle upon Tyne in the Northeast of England where he lived and studied through college, but he decided to move to the United States in 1980 to attend the University of South Carolina for graduate school. Soon after, he graduated with his master’s degree in fine art with a major in painting and minor in printmaking.

From his graduation in the mid-80s until his retirement in 2018, Dodd taught a plethora of art classes at Midlands Technical College. While he, of course, enjoyed teaching painting, which is his normal medium, one of his favorite courses to teach was “Film as Art.”

“I enjoyed teaching the course titled Film as Art (because I am a film buff, cineaste, cinephile etc.),” he shares, “I could encompass as much of film history as I was able to in the time allowed and I could also concentrate on the works of some of my favorite directors.” 

Dodd enjoys a multitude of genres, actually, having published his “first (and perhaps only!)” novel in 2021: Elgin Lost His Marbles, a satire on returning the Elgin Marbles to Greece that he was inspired to begin writing on the plane after a trip to the Parthenon and the New Acropolis Museum. 

His main medium, painting, is similarly inspired by history and the journeys people make to return to themselves or express themselves. This goal is highlighted, specifically in this current exhibition. As he notes, while “Western liberal democracy has nurtured freedom of expression and an environment in which artists have been able to create without fear of persecution for their ideas,” artists who create in “states ruled by autocrats and dictators have consistently…had to fear for their very existence because their ideas did not align with those of the ruling authority.” 

Dodd acknowledges that there is still progress to be made when it comes to minorities and oppressed groups even in Western places of dwelling, asserting that “I think there has been significant change in terms of opportunities which did not exist until quite recently, that would appear to be progress, but it has to be fought for every day in the political sphere.” 

His work is part of this fight, which he enters by contrasting modernists who successfully expressed their life experiences through art with the depictions of autocrats and dictators who inflicted suffering and limited the fundamental right of citizens and artists by controlling their voices. When asked what he believes is a representative part of this exhibition and something he hopes people experience if nothing else, Dodd shared the following: 

The exhibition includes portraits of two film directors, Sergei Eisenstein and Sergei Parajanov, both of whom suffered the consequence of living in a totalitarian state. Eisenstein was prohibited from making films for a period of time because his work did not conform to the approved Soviet style. Parajanov was imprisoned in the Soviet gulag for four years (1973 - 1977) due in part to his Armenian/Georgian ethnicity and his nonconformist work.  Despite the efforts of the Soviet authorities to suppress, censor, punish and silence these individuals, they succeeded. How? Because their work has survived, and it is celebrated today by audiences around the world.  The creative act is a rebellious act, especially when it applies to those whose existence might be in peril for that very act of creation. 

Seeing this exhibition is a chance to not only experience this tension and fight for expression but to support a local artist who represents the voice of our state. Dodd just recently had a painting accepted in the State Museum’s permanent collection, a “gratifying acknowledgement of [his] working presence here in South Carolina,” and has shared his local voice abroad as part of travelling group show—the "Rainforest Art Exhibition" organized by Taiwanese born artist Marlene Tseng Yu that was displayed in both the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts in Taiwan and the Las Vegas Museum of Art. 

Even if you cannot make it to the Opening Reception, you can drop by to see Dodd’s work any time before it comes down on July 2.

Alexander Wilds and Colin Dodd Show New Works at Vista Studios / Gallery 80808

New paintings by Colin Dodd and sculpture by Alexander Wilds are featured at a new exhibition opening Thursday, March 14 at Vista Studios/Gallery 80808 (located in the heart of the Vista at 808 Lady Street.)  There will be an opening reception Thursday night from 6 to 9 PM, and the show will run through Tuesday, March 19; the gallery will be open every day from 1 to 7 PM. Wilds and Dodd are both educators, the former at Benedict College, the latter at Midlands Technical College.  If those names sound familiar, both have shown work at Vista Studios previously.   Wilds was featured as the cover artist in the November issue of Jasper -The Word on Columbia Arts, while Dodd may be best known as the artist who created the huge, striking portrait of Kafka in Goatfeathers. Jasper also wrote about the show Wilds did with his wife, Yukiko Oka, last year here.

You can learn more about Dodd's career  here and here, and more about Wilds here  and here.  Both gentlemen are not only talented, but outgoing, and fascinating to talk with.  Jasper looks forward to this exhibition, and hoes to see everyone out at the reception tomorrow night at Vista Studios!