D. Pierce Giltner

Southern Heritage:
Reclaiming the Past,
Presenting to the Future

In an area outside Chester, South Carolina lives Pierce Giltner, a soon to be be discovered creative spirit. Pierce's artistic talent surpasses set parameters and known boundaries and his emergence on the art world is an unexpected eruption wanting to happen.

Painting since he was a small boy, with no formal training, Pierce has the distinction of discovering old slave cabins and tenant houses. He harvests their wood, tin, and found objects and creates art on them. One might ask what is so unusual? Salvaging materials with a historic past and creating art on them is one thing. Pierce's subject matter of Delta Blues Musicians, slave portraits, and local folks is another. But the fact that he is a white artist who creates and captures images of black subjects is yet another.

As a young boy, growing up in a rural area among poor black and white neighbors sharpened Pierce's eye toward those persons and items that were familiar to his everyday surroundings. It is part of a heritage gone and seldom remembered.

Coming of age immediately after the end of segregation in the South had an impact on on this artist. He saw black folks and white folks living and working side by side. He didn't see any difference then, and as his work reflects he does not see any difference now.

His work, at times life size, is painted boldly, raw and with emotion. The roughness of the materials speaks to the rough times and good times that many of his subjects have experienced, whether they were belting out the blues, were slaves, hard manual laborers, or folks sitting around playing checkers. This artist not only feels the emotion of his subjects but has experienced it first hand, the blues, hard labor, and simple country living.

Crawling into old abandoned slave houses and tenant houses, many collapsed or in the process of falling down, connects him not only with materials he salvages, but also with the elan, the spirit of the former occupants. Often times Pierce discovers an old quilt, some left behind furniture, a shoe or other personal objects that bonds him to the persons or family who lived in this once occupied dwelling.

His images are physically powerful, raw, moving, and at times gentle. His subjects draw in the viewer, and once captured, you immediately feel the emotion and the force of the work.

Growing as a visionary artist, this creative spirit says of his art, "it's just like breathing: it is something I must do. I am collecting and preserving the past to present to the future," he says quietly. "I don't want people to forget the times, or places, or people, who played and still do play an important role in the everyday life of this area, and history. These old houses have been a part of a living history, and I want to share that history and those experiences through my art."

Pierce Giltner is a creative, innovative artist who has taken something old and historic and created something new and unique. Pierce is a soon to be creative force in the art world, so look out, here he comes.