November Issue 2000
Somerhill Gallery in Chapel Hill, NC, Features Works by MaryLou Higgins
Somerhill
Gallery in Chapel Hill, NC, announces a one-person exhibit for
nationally recognized North Carolina artist MaryLou Higgins. New
sculptural stoneware, drawings, and studio furniture will be featured
in the South Gallery through Nov.l8.
For her sixth feature exhibit at Somerhill Gallery, MaryLou Higgins has utilized a childhood love for automobiles to create expressive sculptural figures supported on the tops of hand formed classic cars. As a young girl, her father was a traffic manager, an influence that has inspired her with a special awareness and appreciation for cars. However, it was looking for model cars for one of her grandsons that renewed her love for automobiles and gave her a basis for her newest exhibit. She incorporates clear bright colors, glazes, conspicuous symbolism, as well as a precise attention to detail to dimensionally illustrate the relationship of people and their vehicles. Thoughtful consideration by the artist supports the figures in matching the automobiles in a harmonious allegorical experience.
Along with her car sculptures, Higgins will also present new figurative stoneware vessels. The glazed surfaces, intricate with dazzling color designs, are adorned with superbly sculpted fantasy figures as well as organic forms that integrate the viewer with an architectural appeal. Colorations and carefully considered contours of the vessels create lively, dynamic interplay between that which is drawn on the vessels and the forms themselves.
This remarkable artist's past history as an academician in art history as well as a studio teacher serves as an inspiration for her ongoing interest in the figurative style of Flemish tapestries. Her love and craft for line drawing provides a background for the new collection of architecturally inspired furniture featured in the exhibition. Rounding out the exhibition will be wall tiles, drawings on canvas, and 24kt gold lustered jewelry.
Higgins, a Wisconsin native, is a NC resident. She received both graduate and undergraduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.
She has been a participant in numerous exhibits including the 1999 Southeastern Clay Invitational in Asheville, NC; the 1997 American Craft Council's juried exhibit Spotlight '97 at the Hickory, NC Museum of Art; the 1996 SOFA exhibit at the Chicago Navy Pier; Shards of Women at the Fayetteville Museum of Art in 1996; the 1992 North Carolina Clay Invitational Exhibit at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC; The Tea Party, at the American Craft Museum, New York City, 1991; By the Hand: Twentieth Century Crafts, at the High Museum at Georgia Pacific Center, Atlanta, GA, 1990; 1988 Mint Museum Biennial, Charlotte, NC; Northern Telecom Annual Exhibitions in North Carolina Sculpture in 1985, '86, '87, '88; and the North Carolina Museum of Art Juried Artists Exhibit in 1984. Her work has been included in benefit auctions held at the American Craft Museum, specifically the Bewitched by Craft auctions in 1988 and 1989, the Wearable Benefit in 1990 and Off The Wall in 1992.
Works by Higgins are in private collections throughout the world including Canada, England, France, Italy, Holland, China, and Russia. Her works can also be found in the permanent collections of the North Carolina State Visual Arts Center Raleigh, NC; Fayetteville Museum of Art in Fayetteville, NC; Newark Museum, Newark, NJ; Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC; Glaxo in Research Triangle Park, NC; and the High Museum in Atlanta, GA.
Artist Higgins has been an eight time participant in Who's Who in American Art, most recently in 1999, and in 1978 was included in The World Who's Who of Women.
In 1998, Higgins received the Juror's Choice Award at the Women Artists of North Carolina Exhibit. In 1999, she was featured in the Lark Books publication Surface Decoration. In 1998 her works were displayed in The Clay Lover's Guide to Making Molds, by Pierce Clayton as well as another Lark Books publication entitled The Ceramic Design Book. In 1997, her work was featured in Lark Books Handbuilt Ceramics by Kathy Triplett.
Previously at Somerhill Gallery, Higgins was featured in one-person exhibitis in 1984, 1987, 1991, 1994 and 1997. She has also been a participant in numerous group exhibitions.
For further information check our NC Commercial
Gallery listings or call the gallery at 919/968-8868.
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