More than 100 original oil paintings by the late Columbia artist Laura Spong go on public display together for the first time this weekend, as OTM Gallery opens a three-day exhibition timed to what would have been her 100th birthday year. The show, called Remember the Future, runs Friday through Sunday at 3140 Carlisle Street and draws from an archive spanning six decades of her work.
According to the Columbia Star, the exhibition honors Spong's legacy and her compositions from her complete archives, which span 1957 to 2017 and are available exclusively at OTM Gallery. Spong lived from 1926 to 2018, according to Over the Mantel Gallery, which describes her career as spanning six decades; South Carolina Arts Hub says she began painting in the 1950s.
Remember the Future opens Friday at 11 a.m. and closes at 5 p.m. that day, per the Columbia Star's reporting. Saturday hours stretch from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and the gallery is open Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. Visitors can enter daily drawings for signed and numbered Laura Spong Chicora Wood prints, which depict scenes from Georgetown County, South Carolina.
A Family Celebration Alongside the Art
Saturday evening brings a familial get-together from 5 to 8 p.m., featuring Kershaw Spong & Friends acoustic music, singer-songwriter sets, seasonal fare and libations, the Columbia Star reports. Spong had six children, and according to the same report, she once ranked her children and their families as her greatest accomplishment, placing her art career second. She also said her hope was that her work would connect her with people on a similar journey.
The archival paintings on view include unframed oil and lacquer works on masonite from the 1950s and 1960s, along with one diptych, two triptychs, and woodcuts on paper, per the Columbia Star. OTM Gallery offers parking in front of the building and in the grassy lot across the street, with wheelchair-accessible ramps located at 3142 Carlisle Street and at the corner of Carlisle and Daly streets.
A Career Built Across the Vista and Beyond
Spong was one of the early artists to impact the Vista art scene, the Columbia Star notes, and she began renting studio space at Vista Studios in the late 1980s, according to The Post and Courier. She became a member of the Columbia Artists' Guild, the paper previously reported in a piece on the artist's life. Her paintings were also displayed at U.S. embassies in Slovenia and Switzerland through the State Department's Art in Embassies program, per Over the Mantel Gallery.
In 2017, Spong received the South Carolina Arts Commission's Governor's Award for the Arts for Lifetime Achievement, South Carolina Arts Hub reports; the Columbia Star describes it as the state's highest art honor. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Columbia Museum of Art, the South Carolina State Museum and the Greenville County Museum of Art, and two of her pieces are part of the State Art Collection managed by the Arts Commission.
Big Red and the Vista Wall Sculpture
Among Spong's best-known works is Big Red, an 8-foot by 16-foot painting currently displayed in the Hall of Fame at the Koger Center and listed as available for purchase. Sources differ on when it was painted — Over the Mantel Gallery dates it to 2014, when Spong was 88, while South Carolina Arts Hub lists it as a 2013 oil-on-canvas work measuring 96 by 192 inches.
Spong was also honored with a permanent wall sculpture in the Vista, commissioned by the Congaree Vista Guild in 2025. The guild voted unanimously to feature her, Executive Director Abby Anderson told The Post and Courier. Located at the intersection of Park and Gervais streets next to Pearlz Oyster Bar, the 13-foot by 7-foot wall artwork pairs her portrait with that of 1921 train conductor Wesley Daniels and took about a week to complete, according to the same report.
