John Acorn during his artist talk at Cassilhaus
My good friend Ron Djuren is an insatiable art lover and collector and one of our frequent flyer visitors at Cassilhaus. Ron has turned me on to so many amazing artists. He is an architect and went to school at Clemson. While there his mentor was an artist and teacher named John Acorn and Ron served as his assistant for many years. They shared a home town of Patterson NJ and a deep love of art. Acorn got his MFA at Cranbrook and was chair of the art department at Clemson for more than two decades. Ron showed me a few of John's pieces in his collection and had been gently nudging me to do a show of his work here at the gallery for some time. We had a slot in the summer of 2016 and we were delighted to do an exhibition. Ron and John curated it and arranged for all of the work, some of it quite large, to be transported here.
We had never done an exclusively sculpture show and it was amazing to see the gallery with so many 3D works.
pieces from the camouflage man series
L-R Our friend Janet with Ron and his partner Kim
John gave his artist talk in the gallery among the pieces which made for a lively discussion. The work was potent with some of the imagery very dark with demons of the past while others were much more light hearted.
Ron and John thanks for stretching us and sharing this amazing work with our community.
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