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December Issue
2008
Cameron Art
Museum in Wilmington, NC, Features Works by Clare Leighton and
Bob DeYoung
The Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, NC, is presenting several new exhibitions including: Quiet Spirit, Skillful Hand: The Graphic Work of Clare Leighton, on view through Apr. 5, 2009, and Bob DeYoung: installation (phantasm), on view through Apr. 26, 2009.
Quiet Spirit, Skillful Hand: The Graphic Work of Clare Leighton was organized by the Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC. Born to an artistic family, Leighton studied wood engraving in Great Britain before moving to the US during World War II. Settling first in Baltimore, she moved to Chapel Hill, NC, in 1943 and served as a visiting art lecturer at Duke University from 1943-1945. During her career, she wrote 15 books and created more than 700 prints. The natural world and her surroundings were a continuous source of inspiration.
Leighton's timeless images reveal an abiding interest in and respect for the earth and those who tend it, advocating the virtue of hard labor and the rhythms of nature. On the surface, her subjects are simple working people -- the ploughman, the washerwoman, the net mender, the cotton picker -- but Leighton portrays them and their labor with dignity and reverence.
Throughout her career, Leighton faced the challenges of bias against not only her gender but also the validity of wood engraving illustration as a legitimate means of artistic expression. Even against such challenges, Leighton persevered and strove to make her art original statements of spirit and aesthetic expression. Quiet Spirit, Skillful Hand will focus on the legacy she created within her art, her writing and her commitment to the field of printmaking. An illustrated catalogue with three scholarly essays will accompany the exhibit.
This exhibition was generously underwritten by The Alvin and Fanny B. Thalheimer Foundation, Inc. and additional support was provided by Deborah and Matt Long.
Contemporary artist Bob DeYoung has created his site-specific installation in a 1,440 square foot gallery of the Cameron Art Museum. DeYoung works and lives in Europe, Japan and the United States, and maintains a residence and studio in Wilmington. DeYoung's work ranges from objects to performance art and room installations.
The artist describes himself and his work: "My resume reads like this: I was born; I was raised with snakes and alligators; I had magic played on me by my grandfather; I died when I was 12. Art has encompassed my life all of my life"
DeYoung adds, "The exhibition is about the things in us that we do not fully acknowledge; phantasm and all of its extension meanings, but more closely looking at that part that relates to that area between sleep and awake. This is a place, an area I regard as the deeper, real part of ourselves and that it has in history shone over and over in scientists, artists and others. I believe it to be the most productive area inside of us."
"Art is bound up in the wonderment of the looking at that known-unknown reservoir inside of ourselves."
The installation emphasizes the personal experience of art. Each person views works of art in various ways depending upon individual experience and knowledge. DeYoung emphasizes and encourages those differences by employing interactive components in his installation.
The installation is comprised of walls imbedded with binoculars and other viewing devices, some of these directing the viewer's vision to an interior, rotating metallic blue figure made of violin pieces. The room installation also includes a 43 foot three-dimensional wood sculptural "drawing" of a boat, floating in a space impregnated by color.
For further information
check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Museum
at 910/395-5999 or visit (www.cameronartmuseum.com).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc. Copyright© 2008 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts Online, Copyright© 2008 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.