Local Artists and Arts Council Members Accepted into Hilton Head's Annual Biennale
May 2023
Biennale is an annual arts competition hosted by the Art League of Hilton Head. This year’s showcase is Judged by Aline Ordman who is an award winning pastel artist based in White River Junction, Vermont. Aline is a Master Pastelist with the Pastel Society of America, a Signature Member of the American Impressionist Society, a signature member of the Oil Painters of America and an Eminent Pastelist with the International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS). She has juried the Pastel Society of America’s National Juried show; The Pastel Journal’s Top 100 Animal and Wildlife Competition, the Pastel Society of New Mexico’s Annual Juried Show and the Adirondack Plein Air Festival Awards.
The 2023 Biennale received 639 artworks from 35 states. Top pieces were selected based on the originality of concept, composition, and execution. The exhibition, which is the longest-running national juried art exhibition in the Hilton Head area, will feature multiple media types including Oil, Acrylic, Pastel, Watermedia, Photography, Mixed Media, and Three-Dimensional. Over $5,000 in prizes will be awarded to the most outstanding works.
Sindhu Pillai
Sindhu Pillai is an artist local to Augusta, GA. She is inspired by nature. Her work is largely based on places in the Augusta River Region, such as the Historic Canal and the Savannah River. Although her work often has a realist emphasis, it is draws its influence from the context of her life. Periods of both pain and joy imbue the landscapes she paints. By basing multiple works in the same area over time, Sindhu feels that her works, as a collection, reflect the beauty in a transient and dynamic view of Augusta’s nature, as well as her own, human nature.
Sindhu sees the value and intrinsic calming ability the natural world has, such as the sound of water flowing in a river or the rustling of trees.
In the moment, the struggles of life melt away from my mind, and my thoughts are replaced with love, acceptance, and serenity.
-Sindhu Pillai
With color, Sindhu embodies these feelings. A sunset, marked by deep crimson, neon pink, and yellow ochre, is also marked by vibrant joy and ecstatic compassion in nature. It is her goal to translate the feelings that viewing and experiencing these scenes bring into her artworks.
Sindhu first learned of the Call of Arts for the annual Biennale through the Greater Augusta Arts Council’s newsletter and through their Instagram post urging all artists to apply.
For her Biennale application, Sindhu submitted a very recent painting titled Azalea Bloom. It was accepted. When asked how she felt when she got her acceptance email, Sindhu said: “At first, I couldn’t believe it. It felt like such an honor for my work to be juried and selected on a national level. I felt understood by acclaimed artists. It felt reassuring and motivating.”
Azalea Bloom was inspired by an iconic time in Augusta, GA: the time of the year when azaleas bloom. Seeing the vibrant flowers bring Augusta to life, Sindhu felt they were enveloping her. In this work, pictured to the left, she wished to share the sense of joy she felt.
Sindhu’s work has been shown in the Westobou MICRO Gallery’s Daze Inn Exhibit 2023, Chola Art Gallery, India (2023), 600 Broad Gallery (2023), Columbia County Library (2023), Arts In The Heart of Augusta festival (2022), City Gallery (2020, 2021, 2023), Wet Paint Party (2021, 2022, 2023), and Augusta & Co; (2021). You can find more information on Sindhu and her work by visiting her Instagram , where she is most active, and on her website: www.coloredincanvas.com . She was also the Featured Artist for the July 2022 Arts Council monthly newsletter in Meet Sindhu Pillai and is also featured in the Arts Council Artist Directory.
June Klement
June Klement was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and now calls Augusta, Georgia her home. Her work focuses on translating the emotions that she feels when exploring urban and natural environments into paint. Her impressionistic style of lively, vibrant, and bold brushstrokes highlights the ephemerality of color and light through textures on canvas.
Klement enjoys painting in the studio and painting en plein air. Painting en plein air allows her to communicate nuances in light and feelings that change quickly in an outdoors environment and cannot be captured in the studio. She has always enjoyed painting, and, after working and raising a family, she returned to painting to translate the beauty, joy, and love that she experiences into brushstrokes.
June heard about the Art League of Hilton Head’s 2023 Biennale, a national juried exhibition, from Heather Dunaway at the Greater Augusta Arts Council. Heather, after looking at Judge Aline Ordman’s own work, felt that June may have a good chance of being accepted, as they had similar approaches to creating work.
Upon receiving the news of her acceptance, June says: “I was ecstatic and grateful when I heard I was accepted!”
Locally, June’s work can be found in the Augusta & Co. Gallery in her solo exhibition Exploring the River Region. Which is on display now until June 29, 2023. She is also part of an upcoming Aiken Artist Guild Member Show in Aiken, SC at the Aiken Center of the Arts
in May and in Augusta, GA at the Sacred Heart Cultural Center Show in September. Nationally, June is part of the upcoming Birds of the Rocky Mountain Region juried exhibit in Big Horn, Wyoming at The Brinton Museum in May.
For the 2023 Biennale, June’s work “A Stroll Through Giverny” was accepted. In this piece you can see two figures strolling down an empty street. With colorful houses and fluffy green shrubbery to the left and cool colored structures and shrubs to the right. June’s use of impressionistic shading captures the nostalgia of the moment.
You can find more on June and her work on her website: www.juneklement.com and on social media sites such as Instagram and on Facebook. She is also featured in the Arts Council’s Artist Directory and as the April 2023 Artist Feature in Meet June Klement.
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