TBA TBA
sunrise over the atlantic 2016
philip geiger has been an art professor at the university of virginia for over 30 years. he earned his bfa from washington university and went on to complete his mfa at yale university. geiger’s lustrous light, loose brushwork and subtle color tellingly capture the nuances of mood and feeling that make up the more peaceful moments of contemporary family life. geiger eschews a specific narrative in his paintings, challenging viewers to meditate on our society's daily rituals and settings, and the meanings which may underlie seemingly mundane moments. his work has been reviewed in the new york times, art in america, artnews, and the new criterion.
brigid watson is a boston based painter. she holds a masters degree from new york university and undergraduate degrees from the school of the museum of fine arts, boston and tufts university. her lush abstract drawings and paintings are known for their rich color, and are inspired by people, places, experiences, and travels. in 2021 brigid received the coveted pollock-krasner award. "as an abstract painter, my personal mission is interpreting the natural world with all of the color, feeling, and texture i can summon. i paint the air; hot, humid, dry, crackling with static. i paint the earth; soaked, fruitful, parched. i paint the waters of the lakes and oceans. i paint the fields of my memories in all seasons. i paint the first snow, the blizzards, the thawing in spring. like landscape painters before me, i try to capture my experience on the ever-changing earth." -brigid watson 2024
david kroll received his bfa from the san francisco art institute and a mfa from the art institute of chicago. he taught at the school of the art institute of chicago for almost 20 years. david kroll paints personal refuges and interior landscapes - places to visit for solace and sanctuary. much of his work is intuitive. his paintings are more than visually interesting compositions of creatures, objects and environments. they are imagined, invented moments that touch upon man's complicated, perplexing relationship with nature. each painting reveals more paradoxes than resolutions inviting the viewer to contemplate how disconnected we are from nature. david kroll creates an emotional and intellectual connection between the viewer and the power of landscape, the independent web of life, the idea of nature itself. his work is held in numerous private and public collections.
francis livingston studied at the rocky mountain school of art in denver before moving to san francisco in 1975 to attend the academy of art. he later taught there for 10 years. influenced by sargent and whistler, livingston painted primarily in a monochromatic style until he began to study the work of the bay area figurative movement, including richard diebenkorn, wayne thiebaud and others. with a love for nostalgia, he paints places which may no longer exist or that have lost their luster. his bold and impressionistic paintings take the viewer back in time to the day when amusement parks with wooden roller coasters, movie theatres with neon signs and buildings with ornate embellishments were in their prime. francis livingston is known for his thickly applied brush strokes that emphasize shape rather than line, creating an abstract approach to realism. his scenes of yesteryear have exciting movement, color, texture and balance.
sarah helser was born in high point, north carolina in 1980. she spent her formative years on a farm where she enjoyed the beauty and solitude of nature. her childhood and young adulthood has had a major influence on her creativity as an artist. sarah went on to study fine arts at the university of north carolina, greensboro, where she refined her interests by focusing on the figure and the use of alternative mediums. sarah’s work is meant to express the beauty of the world around her, weaving together both realistic and abstract forms. “i create each painting in the hope to reshape the familiar into the numinous and magical essence of what it carries. it is the brief glimmering speck of a dream, made permanently tangible before it is lost in the waking hours. joining the realistic with the imagined breathes harmony in the contrast and reshapes and impacts the way we see.” -sarah helser
jeffrey reed received his mfa at the university of pennsylvania and his bfa at the maryland institute of art. he was granted a fellowship and residency at the ballinglen arts foundation, ballycastle, county mayo, ireland. reed has mastered the art of handling light and atmosphere within his delicate, lyrical compositions. when he is painting on site he feel a connection with the familiar and a sense of discovery at the same time. he paints in the same locations multiple times allowing him to focus on changes in the light and atmosphere. typically reed works outside for two to three hours on a painting until he get the essence of a particular landscape. then back in the studio, the work is focused on developing the forms and trying to resolve the design of the painting.
"these new works were inspired by a wild vine that grew over my garden, completely transforming it into a design of its own. it was a call to wonder, a call to attention, a call to decide, “what is in your world?” these sculptures are symbolic evidence of this appeal to consciousness and imagination, but also suggest a larger story of how we shape and are shaped by ourselves and our world; how creation is it not fixed, but fluid, and ongoing." johan hagaman was born in jeffersonville, indiana, and earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in english from indiana university. after teaching english in the u.s. and in the peace corps in sierra leone, west africa, johan turned her love for stories and poetry into physical objects. she has work included in many public and private collections and museums such as the tennessee state museum and evansville (indiana) museum of arts and sciences. she is also the recipient of the tennessee individual artist fellowship for 2005. her sculptures are psychological in nature, exploring the stories and myths we create for ourselves to give us meaning. the work often depicts a figure embedded or entwined in some form of nature juxtaposed with rusted manmade objects, implying a larger story of the relationship between the interior landscape of the psyche and the exterior landscape of nature.
jacob cooley was born in 1968. he received an mfa in painting from the university of north carolina at chapel hill in 1993 and graduated in 1990 with a bfa from the university of georgia, athens. he studied at antioch college in yellow springs, ohio from 1986 to 1988. his paintings are informed by harmonious and hallowed places, landscapes about contemplation and the spirit, but also about the transient, ephemeral characteristics of light and darkness and ultimately of life. jacob cooley's work attempts to capture and hold the instant when the orange of the sun is about to completely scatter into the diffused light of dusk or the thunderclouds move to entirely obscure the horizon. cooley has received numerous awards and reviews of his work are included in major publications. his paintings are collected nationally by museums, corporations and private collectors.
eric aho studied at the central school of art and design in london, england and received a bfa from the massachusetts college of art in boston. in 1989 he participated in the first exchange of scholars in over thirty years between the u.s. and cuba. from 1989 to 1998, aho taught painting at the putney school in putney, vermont. he completed his graduate work at the lahti art institute in finland supported by a fulbright fellowship in 1991-92, and an american-scandinavian foundation grant in 1993. aho was elected national academician of the national academy museum in 2009. the currier museum of art was the first american museum to present a survey exhibition of eric aho's work in 2012. aho's latest abstract paintings capture the lived, remembered, and imagined experience of being outdoors. through the unexpected use of color, vigorous paint handling and surprising compositions, his paintings make palpable the immediacy of nature and the intangibles of light and movement.
rick beck is a studio artist who was based in spruce pine, north carolina for 30 years before moving to hawaii in 2020 . he began working in glass at hastings college in nebraska, where he received his ba. he received an mfa from southern illinois university. in 1994, rick was awarded a visual arts fellowship by the north carolina arts council, followed by a national endowment for the arts regional visual arts fellowship from the southern arts federation in 1995. beck is part of the studio glass movement. he has taught at the prestigious pilchuck glass school, assisting artists curtiss brock and jan mares. he has taught at the penland school of craft since 1988. rick beck is known for his large-scale cast glass sculpture depicting industrial, everyday objects and the human figure.
kiki slaughter grew up in charlottesville, va and studied painting at the university of virginia. she pours, scrapes, layers and otherwise manipulates paint on the canvas to create works that are rich in both color and texture. kiki is also very inspired by her visual surroundings. she strives to interpret and record her impressions of the world around her through her use of color and texture. although her works are entirely abstract, each piece maintains subtle characteristics from its source of inspiration. in 2012 she was named a southern tastemaker by garden & gun magazine.
laura sanders is a figurative painter whose paintings of people in oceans, lakes and swimming pools capture the realistic sense of the figure and the water. she works very closely with her photography and that is where the random or unexpected enters the work. during a photo session, sometimes something she may have planned as the focus ends up looking different than in her minds eye and that moment leads her into another direction. she spends hours pouring through photographs to find ones that capture the feeling or idea she had in mind. photoshop is incorporated to patch together images to form a unique composition. she is a skilled painter who has the ability to capture light through reflections using color and brushstrokes as her tools. she received her bachelor of fine arts from the columbus college of art and design in ohio in 1988. laura recently received several grants and awards including the ohio arts council individual excellence award in 2009 and in 2006.
throughout herb jackson's childhood he was a regular at the north carolina museum of art in raleigh and won his first award for art in a juried exhibition there in 1962, as a teenager. he received his undergraduate degree from davidson college and three years later he earned his master's degree in fine arts from the university of north carolina at chapel hill. in 1969, while finishing up his graduate studies, jackson began teaching at davidson. he soon became the chair of the art department which he held for 16 years. he retired from teaching in 2011. jackson's work is now in more than 80 museum collections including the british museum in london and the brooklyn museum in new york city. in 1999, herb jackson was given the north carolina award by the governor. this is the highest civilian honor bestowed by the state. herb jackson's paintings are built up in many layers which are scraped off as they are being applied. shapes and marks come and go as the painting develops to a hundred or more layers. the final outcome is the result of a process of discovery similar to the life experience itself. "to require that an image, to be a bearer of content, must be recognizable is to suggest that there is no form to the unknowable." - herb jackson
sally king benedict received her ba in studio art from the college of charleston. sally’s mixed media works range from her classic faces to pure abstraction. she is inspired by her travels and all aspects of her life spill into her work. the energy she creates through her brushstrokes and palette is truly unique. her visual voice is so strong and stays in the viewer’s mind long after seeing the work. sally’s work has been featured in elle decor, house beautiful, domino and southern living. benedict's exuberant style is unmistakable and showcases her expert use of color and dynamic brushwork. sally lives and works in ketchum, idaho.
mary rountree moore graduated from the university of of north carolina, chapel hill and went on to study art at the national academy school of fine arts in nyc. her intense love of colors found in nature is the driving force behind her paintings with a keen interest in the natural order found in the landscape and the changing seasons. she pushes the boundaries of realism into abstraction as her compositions move from loose realism to abstraction. mary rountree moore is particularly drawn to the salt marshes of the southeast.
page jones davis was born in atlanta and now resides in inman, south carolina. she recently received her ma from the savannah college of art and design. her abstract paintings were exhibited in a group exhibition entitled siblings at the spartanburg museum of art. page's color saturation and her compositions are spot on. her paintings are bursting with color and form. “ the infinite color combinations in nature and in the material world alike are etched into my mind. that bright green patch of moss i saw on my walk that stood out so boldly against the dead winter leaves had such strength and grace. that wacky color combination in a gorgeous fabric was unapologetically loud. the nature of color and its complexities is the fuel for my work. the story that ensues as color becomes form is my fire.” -page jones davis 2020
expressionist painter kate long stevenson was born and raised in north carolina, and began her professional career while a student at the university of the south. gestural brushstrokes and a passion for color are characteristic to all of her pieces, ranging from figurative paintings to abstracts. a life-long lover of music, kate relies on mostly classical compositions to guide her as she builds a painting, layering chords of color over energetic swirls of charcoal and paint. "it's important to me that my paintings have a subject, despite how non-subjective some can seem. with my nude paintings, the figure is the vehicle that invites you to discover the true subject: the elements--the way it was painted. the abstracts have just skipped that introduction, altogether, but they're still about something--music, tempo, motion and emotion. it all comes from a feeling, but then the challenge is not only to translate that to the canvas but to have it make sense, compositionally." kate lives in charleston, south carolina with her two sons.
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