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February Issue 2003
Davidson County Community College in Lexington, NC, Offers Exhibition Based on Color
Celebrating Color is the theme for the Spring art exhibit at Davidson County Community College, located in the Mendenhall Building on the college's campus. The exhibit will be on display through May 21, 2003.
A wide array of media from fine art quiltmaking to interactive mixed media sculpture is represented by artists who all employ bold or purposeful color in their work. Several artists also utilize ordinary objects, either to show the hidden beauty inherent in them, to reinterpret them into symbols, or to create the artwork itself. Other artists are inspired by the landscape.
Artists from North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and New York are included in this show. Featured artists are Gloria B. Blades, oil and wax, of Richmond, VA; Mark Crummett, interactive mixed media sculpture, of Cary, NC; Jennifer Edwards, watercolor and pastel, of Winston-Salem, NC; Jane Iten, watercolors, of Ridgeway, VA; Dottie Moore, art quilts, of Rock Hill, SC; Adam Mowery, color photography, of Lexington, NC; Pat Pilkington, oils and watercolors, of Boone, NC; Elsie Dinsmore Popkin, pastels, of Winston-Salem, NC; and Gina Fuentes Walker, color photography, of New York, NY.
The colorful, rich surfaces of the intriguing ongoing body of work by artist Gloria B. Blades was prompted by reading Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. She began to wonder what such a room might offer in order to be a nourishing physical space, and immediately a list of mundane items came to mind. The challenge in the painting process was in capturing the essence of those ordinary objects. "Questions arose about my own generation," Blades explains. "What objects does a contemporary woman need in her space? Sometimes there is a neurotic urge to possess, collect and cherish these objects. I wonder how dependent we have become on these things to identify who we are. The fundamental need for security, comfort, and stability is one of the underlying themes of the paintings."
Mark Crummett says, "I love the intrinsic beauty of technology, the order of a row of chips on a circuit board, the precise gleam of a hard drive platter, the color and symmetry of a motor armature." Crummett recycles such inspiring, unusual materials and puts the fun in functional with his mixed media sculptures, most of which are interactive. With the flip of a switch, lights come on to illuminate large marbles; a fan blows to turn the bird's wings. "I like the idea that this order, precision and beauty is imposed on the material as consequence of the use of the material, dictated by the physics of what the material is and what it is doing," Crummett states in describing his art form. He also quotes Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Why is Jennifer Edwards compelled to imbue
her landscapes and floral paintings with unearthly colors? "Because
there is more to a landscape than just green and earth tones.
There is more to an animal than just brown, gray, or beige."
she explains. " I look at my pastel box filled with every
imaginable color and I wonder - are there colors in the Other
World that we do not even have the capacity to imagine? I believe
so. Color is my passion...to communicate through color my anticipation
and desire for more - more color, more beauty, more freedom, more
joy," says Edwards.
"As a painter, I give existence to the thoughts and feelings
I have about life in visual terms," says Jane Iten. The stimulus
for her watercolor paintings comes most often from direct observation,
seeing common, everyday objects transformed by light to reveal
visual discoveries never seen before.
"Beauty and aesthetic value exist in the mundane and ordinary; they are available to each of us if time is taken to see through our eyes, intellect and spirit. Such revelations create the desire to interpret what I see through painting. It is my hope that viewers will look at my paintings and be inspired to seek and find beauty in everyday life," says Iten.
Dottie Moore
Dottie Moore uses thread as her medium to stitch
layers of cloth and images into visual conversations about the
mystery of earth and sky. Embroidery stitches embellish the surface
of her art quilts, breathing life and texture into each piece.
"Nature speaks the soul's symbolic language and I discover
layers of meaning in each tree and mountain that I quilt,"
Moore describes.
Trees, mountains, clouds, pathways, rivers, and windows all speak
to her in various symbolic languages. "My work is a personal
journal," she explains. "I work intuitively, allowing
each page to unfold in it's own time; in it's own way. The process
becomes meditation as my thoughts drift into the silence of doing.
The magic is in the process," says Moore.
Also inspired by nature, Adam Mowery points out that "raindrops on a fallen leaf, a glorious sunrise - all are often overlooked because we are too caught up in our day-to-day lives. We tend to walk by the things in life that don't always catch our attention at first glance, taking for granted many natural wonders."
Mowery, a former DCCC student, says that the driving force behind his photography is "the longing to get people to be still and see what a beautiful natural world God has created for us to enjoy. I hope that one day I can make a photo that gives at least a little bit of justice to the true beauty of the natural world."
Pat Pilkington welcomes the viewer to a very colorful world. "No, I'm not color blind," she explains, "I just love bold, delicious color and thick expressive strokes to describe my delight in each new day we are given." After losing her parents tragically and surviving two bouts of cancer, art emerged as Pilkington's catalyst and way of expressing this delight. Her oils and pastels express the sense the joy it gives her to create her paintings.
"I always take a backpack full of pastels along when I am traveling, for I don't feel as if I have really seen a place unless I have drawn it," says Elsie Dinsmore Popkin. "I try to do the entire painting on site, so that I can try to match the brilliant and subtle colors of nature and feel the air and light of that particular place as I work." Popkin uses handmade pastels for their rich colors, using fixative between layers to keep the colors clear and crisp. "Towards the end I find myself with chalk in my left hand and fixative in my right, alternating between them as I 'embroider the surface' until the painting has arrived at completion," Popkin explains.
"The cadence of a city can both invigorate
and overwhelm us," states Gina Fuentes. Using architecture,
landscape, and the human portrait in her color photography, she
explores an individual's need to create personal and quiet moments
of reflection amidst the cacophony and activity of urban life.
"I use color in a way that is meant to captivate as well
as inspire the viewer," she explains. "The deep green
hue of a landscaped park and the vibrant blue shining through
a skylight exist as portals in my work, through which the mind
can travel to a meditative place. My interest in how others experience
their world informs my work."
This series represents a societal view of her surroundings, and
derives inspiration from her background in anthropological studies
and documentary media.
For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings or contact Kathy Kepley at 336/249-8186, ext. 383, or e-mail at (kkepley@davidson.cc.nc.us).
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