When it comes to the arts, Charleston is in a very good place. Its offerings are roughly equivalent to a city double or triple its size. It boasts a fine symphony orchestra, around 15 active theater companies, a terrific improv comedy group, multiple arts festivals (both large and small), important museums and galleries, film festivals, chamber music concerts, a few up-and-coming dance companies, a vibrant pop music scene and more.

Patrons have so much to choose from on any given weekend, it’s impossible to see it all.

It’s fair to say that Charleston is the cultural capital of the Southeast. The arts define the city’s character.

The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art is starting its 2017-18 season with a bang. The first of its fall shows is a fascinating study of landscapes, one set by Los Angeles-based painter Marc Trujillo, the other by Italian watercolor artist Riccarda de Eccher.

Trujillo makes large hyper-realistic oil paintings of generic suburban subjects, sometimes interiors, sometimes exteriors, all focused on the banal yet strangely imbued with meaning, even emotion.

The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art announces a fall season teeming with exhibitions, lectures, film screenings, special member events, and discussions. From American purgatory to mountain peaks to trash as treasure, the Halsey’s programming is as diverse as it is universal — check out the full lineup below.

The College of Charleston’s Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art has received a $15,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant for a 2018 exhibition of Cuban artist Roberto Diago’s work, which focuses on racism and the traces of slavery in the Caribbean.

The exhibit is part of the special classes, performances, and events surrounding Cuba en el Horizonte, the college’s semester-long interdisciplinary project. Diago’s status as a Cuban artist was a big draw, Mark Sloan, the director and chief curator of the Halsey Institute, says.

“He is among the most prominent contemporary artists in Cuba, and an emerging voice on the global stage,” Sloan says. “We have a long history of introducing artists like this to the Charleston community.

With Piccolo Spoleto at an end, the official start of summer happening next week and the kids (hopefully) sent off to camp, it’s time to fill up your calendar with artistic summertime events. Don’t forget to visit our art galleries and events (and take the kids, too!) so those mental muscles don’t atrophy while school is out.

This week the focus is on two events that extend and expand the boundaries of contemporary art and its universal elements. I’ve met a few people who are frightened by the notion of contemporary art, incorrectly assuming contemporary art is distant and filled with indecipherable, confusing or alienating imagery. But, like many of our assumptions, they can be proven wrong through experience. And one of the best experiences is to hear directly from the artist.

Tom Stanley, whose exhibition “Scratching the Surface” is on display at Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art through July 8, will be offering an artist talk and guided gallery walk at 2 p.m. Saturday. 

Stanley uses sgraffito in his abstract paintings, a method that scratches a layer of paint on a work to reveal a layer underneath. The underneath layer is sometimes a differing color and gives the painting a depth and contrast you might not see otherwise.

artGuide art news blog presents Tom Stanley: Scratching the Surface at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art. Associated with the College of Charleston, the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art is a leading contemporary exhibition space in South Carolina.  A top destination in the heart of Charleston, the Halsey is a must visit for any art patron.

At the beginning of the month, The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art joined the social media campaign #5womenartists; started by The National Museum of Women in the Arts, the goal of the campaign is to “call attention to the inequity women artists face, inspire conversation, and bring awareness to a larger audience.”

On Mon., March 27, at 6 p.m. The Halsey will host five SC-based female artists — Michaela Pilar Brown, Arianne King Comer, Camela Guevara, Donna Cooper Hurt, and Kristi Ryba — who will each discuss their work and experience as women artists.

When you walk into the Halsey this week, you’re being invited to solve a mystery.

Tom Stanley’s paintings are a series of black-and-white rectangles etched with geometric shapes, tangled lines, boxy houses, and round-bellied boats. Coming face-to-face with his canvases feels like walking into a stark picture book co-created by Sweeney Todd and a young Frank Lloyd Wright. The works, produced over the last 14 years — while Stanley was doing double-duty as Chair of Winthrop University’s Department of Fine Arts — range from straightforward to mindfucking (in the best way).

Tom Stanley draws with paint. His work is graphic and he uses a limited palette of black, white and red, which he calls “the most useful colors.”

He builds his own stretchers and often paints in the hallway outside his office/ studio at Winthrop University. Preferring to work on several pieces at once, Stanley paints one panel, takes it down, then moves onto another, and then another. This rotation allows him to be free from formulaic concerns.

520 national and international cultural institutions from seven continents and 30 countries participated in the second year of the National Museum of Women in the Arts’ (NMWA) acclaimed #5WomenArtists social media campaign, which has just been awarded a 2017 American Alliance of Museums’ MUSE Award for outstanding achievement in media. NMWA, the world’s only major museum solely dedicated to celebrating women artists, champions women in the arts all year long, but in March, during Women’s History Month, the museum has an even greater opportunity to celebrate women artists.