After years of planning, artist and arts champion Robin Aiken fulfills her dream of opening a gallery
Robin Aiken admits she has a “very, very cool” job. As Artisphere’s visual arts programs manager, she oversees the jury review process, interacts with the exhibiting artists, and coordinates the art demonstrations seen during the annual three-day festival. “Anything visual arts, I get to do,” she says.
Yet the Greenville native and artist long has wanted a personal project. After her move back here in 2012, Aiken noticed the number of talented artists outnumbered the galleries where they could exhibit their work.
She recently opened Thornback Gallery to help fill that gap.
“I’ve seen first-hand how the city and its arts community have grown. I decided a while ago I wanted to play a part in that growth by providing a forum for artists to show work that is under-represented in the Upstate,” says Aiken, who will continue her role at Artisphere along with creating her mixed-media pieces and portraits.
Robin Aiken Opens Gallery
Thornback Gallery occupies more than 2,200 square feet of the Lofts of Greenville’s ground floor. Once the Monaghan Mill, the circa 1902 industrial building’s upper floors became residential lofts in 2006. Atlanta-based developers Tribridge Residential bought the property in 2019 with the intent of creating ground-floor mix-used spaces for “commercial businesses with a focus on the arts,” Aiken says.
She serendipitously met the developers the same year through fellow Greenville artist Michelle Jardines. Aiken’s ambitions and Tribridge’s plans meshed. After four years of planning and construction—a timeline lengthened thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic—she finally opened the gallery’s doors in April.
Its contemporary artwork ranges from realist charcoal portraits and oil paintings to multilayered mixed media works. There are richly detailed abstract paintings, along with digitally created avian artwork, intricate lithographs, and more. Aiken’s goal is to exhibit pieces that viewers must spend some time with, exploring each one’s nuances and layers.
“I want to show work that’s a little more challenging and makes you think. And maybe makes you a little uncomfortable,” she says. “There needs to be a forum for it, and I want Thornback to be that place. The more you see something, the more you get it and the less challenging it is. I want to broaden people’s horizons a little bit.”
Aiken also is working with an architect on plans for 10 to 15 artist studios in a light-filled 7,000-square-foot space just beside the gallery’s two rooms. “Eventually this will be an arts destination with the studios and the gallery,” she says.
The studio space was home to a successful holiday art market hosted by Making Space GVL last December.
Aiken and artist Sunny Mullarkey founded Making Space GVL in March 2023 to pair emerging and established artists with local businesses interested in exhibiting artwork. Through quarterly art installations and receptions at spots like Fork and Plough and LaRue Fine Chocolates, along with a shoppable website, the initiative aimed to create new opportunities for artists to connect with collectors.
Aiken and Mullarkey had to cease Making Space GVL’s efforts in June because of family obligations and time constraints. But Aiken hopes she can continue an iteration of it through Thornback Gallery. “We’re definitely going to maintain the mission of providing opportunities for local artists to share work,” she says.
Crew of Contemporary Artists
Thornback Gallery represents a growing roster of local and regional artists that currently includes Todd Anderson, Kym Day, Heather Deyling, William Downs, Ummarid Eitharong, Hannah Erlich, Phil Garrett, Marcus Kenney, Kenneth Kudulis, Lucy Luckovich, Gretta McCall, Gia Miminoshvili, Tiffany Ownbey, and Traci Wright Martin.
Aiken found some of them through her job with Artisphere; others she’s discovered locally. “I’m in a unique position where I can provide a forum for other artists, and I’m passionate about it. And it felt right for me to do this,” she says. “I love having the opportunity to represent these artists.”
What’s in a Name?
While Thornback is the name given to various types of sea rays with spines on their backs, Aiken chose it as her gallery’s name for a different reason.
“It’s a little tongue-in-cheek, and there’s a little bit of an edge,” she says, referencing how thornback was used in British historical texts and period literature to describe an unmarried woman who is over 26 years old.
The word ties into the building’s history as a textile mill. “The only job you could get as an unmarried woman at that time was as a spinner, which is where the word spinster came from,” Aiken says. “But Spinster seemed too on the nose for the gallery’s name. Thornback seems like one that nobody knows what that is. It felt right for me.”
Thornback Gallery is located in the Lofts of Greenville at 201 Symthe St. (its entrance is adjacent to the building’s Monaghan Mill sign). It currently is open the first Friday of every month from 6 to 9 p.m. for the Metropolitan Art Council’s First Friday Art Crawls, as well as for special events and by appointment.
