In Rock Hill, examples of Carolinas nature gain artistic scenes | Rock Hill News

ROCK HILL — The pattern of a leaf. The bulbous design of a mushroom. The frame left by a departed insect.

Some artists go far in search of inspiration. Meredith Connelly could do that too. But the Carolinas-based artist often doesn’t have to go much further than a few steps outside her studio.

With an emphasis on the nature that can be found outdoors throughout the Carolinas, you can see his work in Rock Hill and Charlotte. Residents of the Palmetto State may have previously seen his art in Charleston. Stay tuned to find out where else you’ll see Connelly’s work.

“It’s all everywhere,” Connelly said of nature’s inspirations. “I could find it by seeing something growing through a crack in a sidewalk in uptown Charlotte. I could also find it in the mountains of the Carolinas, or on a trail. It’s really just paying attention to what surrounds.”

At the York County Museum in Rock Hill, Connelly’s “Decomposers Glow,” an indoor darkroom exhibit featuring illuminated sculptures of mushrooms and snails, will be on display through Nov. 10.

When walking through a field, it’s easy to miss mushrooms, but in South Carolina they attract a lot of attention. State tourism officials highlight the thousands of varieties of fungi that grow natively in the Palmetto State. Mushrooms are known for their flavorful, medicinal and environmental uses. Meanwhile, there are also about two dozen species of snails throughout the state.

Connelly grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina, and now lives north of Charlotte. His art mixes nature and technology. It’s also a fusion of parental influences: His father had a background in biology, while his mother had a pottery kiln on the family’s back porch.

“I had a microscope when I was a kid,” she said. “I was always outdoors, exploring, collecting things. I mean, even snail shells – this interest started as a child. My parents supported exploration.”

She considered science-based occupations, such as becoming a veterinarian, but discovered that art also had scientific applications.

“Art seemed to be the way I communicated and translated what I learned into that scientific domain,” she said. “It’s symbiotic, in a way, because the more I create, the more I research things about science, nature, cultures, myths and traditions, and that helps me keep creating new work.”

The Rock Hill exhibit included a September 18 workshop for museum visitors led by Connelly. In addition to discussing the exhibit, she brought out leaves, mushrooms and shells for people to create their own ink collages.

“Any opportunity I have to connect with viewers and visitors, I love to take advantage of,” she said. “And with this being a museum specifically focused on science and nature, it was an interesting opportunity to use art to bring some awareness to that side of my practice. A lot of times in different art venues, you’re not in a room full of scientific specimens.”

This session was in the museum’s Naturalist Center, full of fossils and taxidermy.

If you miss Connelly’s work with mushrooms and snails in Rock Hill, a similar display will be set up as a permanent outdoor exhibit at Atherton Mill in Charlotte’s South End area. Also in Charlotte, she opened her art “Dew Drops” at Blume Studios in September.