Guest Exhibit – Chloe Compton Landscape & Memory
Location: Gaffney Visitor’s Center & Art Gallery
Presented by: The Cherokee Alliance of Visual Artists (CAVA)
Exhibit Dates: May 8 – June 27, 2025
Reception: May 29, 2025 | 5:30 – 7:00 pm
Talk by Artist: Begins at 6:00 pm
Artist Statement:
“Upstate South Carolina, with its river channels and hardwood forests, has shaped my family for generations. My love for nature is inseparable from my family members, who taught me to love the land. Landscape and memory are deeply intertwined—both constantly shifting, eroding, and reforming. As I observe the slow accumulation of detritus in the river channels, the buildup of leaves, and the ever-changing paths of sand and clay, I see reflections of my own experience with memory—always moving, always changing, never fully within reach.
My work moves between documentation and interpretation, between the desire to preserve and the inevitability of loss. In translating my experience of these landscapes into visual forms, I engage with the tension between what remains and what fades. The landscape and the people I associate it with are inextricably linked, and through process and material, I search for meaning.
Material is essential to this exploration. Clay, plaster, steel, wood, and found objects—both collected from nature and inherited from loved ones—serve as vessels for memory. These materials carry traces, holding onto history even as they erode. Like the landscape, they embody both decay and resilience, reflecting the dissonance between holding on and letting go.”
– Chloe Compton