| For more information about this article or gallery, please call the gallery phone number listed in the last line of the article, "For more info..." |
April Issue 2006
NC Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, NC, Features Works by Liza Myers and Emily Barnett
The newest show at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences' Nature Art Gallery in Raleigh, NC, features the works of two women whose subjects are frequently seed pods and birds' nests - symbols of new life. Award winning artists Liza Myers and Emily Barnett will be featured in Hope for the Future, which opens on Apr. 7 and runs through May 28, 2006.
Vermont native Liza Myers' bird nests are done in acrylic on canvases that range in size. The realist painter says that while dimensions of these nests are measured in inches, the creatures who construct them often live in a realm that spans hemispheres, soaring across political, cultural and linguistic borderlines. "Whatever your language -Swahili, French, Thai, Quechua, Lakota - a nest speaks of hope for the future; of the wonder of natural things; and the tenacity of the small winged creatures who build them," she says. "These very same creatures glide over oceans and continents weaving the latitudes together with an invisible web of flight patterns."
Myers has been teaching art to children and adults and exhibiting in the northeast continuously since the 1970s. She is the owner of the Liza Myers Gallery and Studio in Brandon, VT.
Emily Barnett's involvement in art began at Queens College in New York when she abandoned a creative writing major for art. One morning she found a nest that had fallen from a tree and was compelled to draw it, prompting a shift from figurative, narrative paintings to nature-themed imagery. "Nests continue to fascinate me," says Barnett. "They are amazing, complex constructions that summon notions of enclosure and entanglement."
Barnett is also fascinated with seed pods for similar reasons and will sometimes enlarge or crop an image to take the viewer closer to her subject. "The form of a horse chestnut seed pod projects protective, threatening and sexual attitudes," she says. "I am intrigued by the possibilities of combining close observation with a sense of mystery."
In addition to her creative work and an active exhibition schedule, Barnett is also on the faculty of Hofstra and Adelphi universities, both located in Long Island and Parsons School of Design in New York City. She has exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the United States and her work is in a number of collections including the City of Seattle, Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ) and the Long Island Fine Art Museum. Barnett has received major awards including one from the National Academy of Design and is listed in "Who's Who in American Art."
For more information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, contact Heather Heath at 919/733-7450, ext. 360 or at (www.naturalsciences.org).
.
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing
Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc.
Copyright© 2006 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© 2006 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.