CMA unveils new painting in honor of former director
PRESS RELEASE
June 11, 2026
Columbia, S.C. – The Columbia Museum of Art proudly announces it has commissioned a new work of art in honor of former executive director Della Watkins. Extend Brace Expand (2026), a large, energetic painting created by artist Paul Yanko (b. 1968), was installed above the grand staircase in the museum’s lobby on June 10.
“Della Watkins was deeply committed to making the CMA a welcoming place for all,” says CMA Deputy Director Joelle Ryan-Cook. “The Yanko commission, powerful in terms of scale and color, reflects her big, bright personality and honors her dedication to making our public spaces vibrant and filled with art.”
Consisting of acrylic paint and collaged canvas and measuring six feet high by nine feet wide, Extend Brace Expand offers a rhythmic pattern of complex interlocking geometries that give way to a dynamic yet holistic arrangement. For the artist, the paint’s rich surface relates to the accumulation of personal experience, from the old brick buildings he observed growing up in Youngstown, Ohio, to the vivid colors that decorated his mother’s kindergarten classroom.
“Yanko’s work is deeply engaged in the history of abstraction,” says CMA Senior Curator Michael Neumeister. “We are delighted to bring his work into the CMA Collection, where it complements our holdings in abstract painting from Charlotte Park to Sam Gilliam and beyond.”
Yanko completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1991 and continued his studies to receive a Master of Fine Arts in painting from Kent State University in 1995. In 2004 he moved to Greenville, South Carolina, to teach in the Visual Arts Department at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities.
Yanko exhibits both regionally and nationally, and his work is in private and public collections including: The Johnson Collection in Spartanburg, the Greenville County Museum of Art, the MUSC Contemporary Carolina Collection in Charleston, and the Akron Art Museum in Ohio. He is represented by The George Gallery in Charleston and Hampton III Gallery in Greenville.
Image:
Paul Yanko (American, born 1968). Extend Brace Expand, 2026. Acrylic and collage on canvas. Museum purchase in honor of Della Watkins. Photo courtesy of Hampton III Gallery LTD.