The Art of Steve Garner

“Garner’s aim is to entertain viewers while challenging their conceptions, engaging them is such a way as to create a memorable experience. He is ‘all over the place’ with media, using whatever materials make for an edgy outcome. ‘I have always been fearless in putting stuff out there and have been shot down many times,’ he says. Yet in doing so, Garner has plowed new ground and created pieces that stand apart and alone in their fresh approach.”—Brenda McLean

Art on The Square

By Brenda McLean

PENDLETON South Carolina—(The Pendletonian)—December 2024—The Art Gallery on Pendleton Square sits in the middle of the business strip facing the village green, welcoming patrons into a virtual jewel box of art.

The gallery’s director is Steve Garner, and the composition of art pieces displayed throughout the space is arrayed according to Garner’s design. He calls on his lifetime of experience to arrange paintings, photography, glass art, clay sculpture, textiles, and jewelry into an art space that is a prized Pendleton asset.

Garner began his love story with art in the second grade in North Dakota when his teacher recognized his aptitude and encouraged his drawing. He says he can still smell that tempera paint all these years later.

Garner encourages every artist to allot time to try new things. In his own artistic journey, fueled all the way by experimentation, he concentrated on painting and printmaking while in graduate school at Hughes Center of Fine Arts at University of North Dakota. Surrounded by a diverse faculty and vast facilities which encouraged discovery, he cites the early critical influence of René Magritte, a Belgian Surrealist known for his provocative depictions of ordinary subjects in unexpected contexts.

Garner’s art was influenced by many of his instructors, particularly, Robert A. Nelson, a well-known printmaker with a Pop Art leaning, and Brian Paulson, whose small watercolor images depicted everyday subjects in surreal settings. During this time Garner developed two series of work in Serigraphy (Photo Silkscreen); the first he called his “Ball Jar Series,” works created for his MA thesis exhibit; the second, “Sanitarians”, created for his MFA Thesis Exhibit.

Garner began his career in teaching as a Graduate Assistant; then, as a Maintenance Supervisor in the Visual Arts Department; following which he became an Adjunct Professor at Mayville State Teachers College in North Dakota.

“After six years, I relocated to St. Louis and began a career in a secondary setting,” he says. “My personal art transitioned to water-media on both paper and canvas. I laid out concepts in thumbnail sketches and then worked them up with Photoshop.”

Eight years later, Garner moved to Greenville, South Carolina where he taught at Greenville Technical College and J. L. Mann High School, later moving to full-time high school art instruction. It was at this time that Garner developed his ‘”Trout in Hiding” series, putting fish where one might least expect to find them, a venture which he  found highly entertaining.

While teaching in Greenville, Garner incorporated Art History in his lessons, taking his students each year to Atlanta’s High Art Museum. The first trip was to see a major Pop Art Exhibit which inspired those young artists to create a series of Pop Art Mural Projects that are still on display. That was the first of several student projects over the years that are still influential in promoting the visual arts in our area.

After retiring from teaching, and among many new projects, Garner is now painting on raw, stretched canvas, a method related to watercolor on canvas in that the acrylic paint is absorbed into the fabric, giving the final product a rich matte finish. A favorite recent piece produced in this manner is his “Deerland.” (“It even has some glitter in it,” he notes.)

Garner enjoys and employs whimsical approaches. “Saturday Night Live” is one such work, a digital piece which calls up a variety of memories for viewers. It depicts architecture that may have vanished from sight, though it has been revisited in a new form as Porta-Potties. This is a typical example of Garner’s mischievous approach. 

 “Brewster” is a 3-D Pop Art piece that been through many evolutions since its original debut. This multimedia piece is covered with sections cut from beer cans and several coats of Epoxy Resin. “Brewster “sparkles and draws attention wherever he goes.

A very popular Pop Art piece that Garner has recreated in many iterations is “Big Tiger.” This mixed media work features assembled pieces of aluminum cans and gold mirror eyes overlaid with resin. The reflections have a life of their own as the light changes. Even when the lights are turned off, the piece is alive with unexpected luminosity.

Garner’s early ventures continue to inform his work. Twenty years ago, he painted fish; trout flying through trees and hiding in vases of flowers. Now the fish are mosaics made of glass. Twenty years ago, Garner would have laughed at the idea of painting a tiger. Today, he creates mosaic Tigers because people love them. Patrons are drawn to his innovative style, and his works evoke smiles and even chuckles throughout the gallery.

“I enjoy my position as Gallery Director for the Art Gallery on Pendleton Square,” says Garner. “When I first joined the Gallery, I did so because I wanted to learn more about selling art and see first-hand what interests the public. It’s been a continuous learning experience with something new and exciting all the time. We are a mixed group of Art- loving people with members ranging from the self-taught to the highly educated. The diversity of art on offer is what makes the gallery so interesting, and all members bring in excellent pieces for the public to see and imagine in their own spaces. We don’t arrange our work like most art cooperatives tend to do, with each artist showing in her or his own defined space. We mix it up throughout our gallery, which is challenging to arrange, but more interesting for the public.”

Note: Visit The Art Gallery on Pendleton Square, at 150 Exchange Street, Pendleton SC 29670, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. (Website: https://www.artgalleryps.org/; Tel. 864-221-0129)