April 2014

Caldwell Arts Council in Lenoir, NC, Features Group Show

The Caldwell Arts Council in Lenoir, NC, will present Different Perspectives, Four Forms, featuring the work of artists Kat Cole, Johnny Stevens, Sharon A. Sharp, and Julia Ralston, on view from Apr. 4 - 25, 2014. A reception will be held on Apr. 4, from 5-7pm.

Kat Cole (Dallas, TX) received her MFA at East Carolina University and BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and is currently a studio artist in Dallas, TX. Cole’s work is in private and public collections including The Museum of Arts and Design in New York.

Cole offers the following statement, “I find meaning through the observance and intimate awareness of the places I inhabit. With each geographic change, I have become more attuned to the natural and man-made attributes that make each location unique. An interest in the anti-aesthetic aspects of a place draws me to the abandoned buildings and factories, scrap yards, piles of trash and detritus found in the streets. This is the evidence of human inhabitance - past and present. The play between the intimate scale of jewelry and monumental landscapes and structures that inspire me brings a kind of tension to the work. An attempt to contain some quality of place and experience that is larger than the individual or object.

“Using found materials in my work, collected in the places I live, allows me to create a direct connection between art object and place. The tins, rusty bolts, scraps of plastic and metal are transformed in conjunction with enamel and steel to make jewelry and sculpture distinctly of a place and time,” adds Cole.

Julia Ralston (Boone, NC & Kiawah Island, SC) says, “I’ve been trusting my instincts and experimenting recently with imaginative color and composition. Landscape is still my starting point, but I’m just as interested in the environment created on the 2-D surface as I am concerned with the original motif. After all, I’m making a painting, not stamping an exact likeness of the natural world. It’s been an intuitive learning process to narrow my focus and not try to say everything on every canvas.”

After many years as a nonfiction book editor and teacher of editing, Sharon A. Sharp (Boone, NC) of Sharp Handmade Books plunged into intensive book-arts studies at Penland School of Crafts (NC), where she became captivated by nontraditional book forms and their sculptural aspects. Exploring unique, multifaceted ways of meshing form and content, especially regarding nature-centered themes and wordplay, is Sharp’s creative passion. Images of Sharp’s books appear in 1,000 Artists’ Books and in 500 Handmade Books, volumes 1 and 2. Her works have appeared in numerous regional and national juried exhibitions

Johnny Stevens (Austin, TX) was raised in Lenoir, NC, where he attended elementary and middle school, followed by high school at Asheville School for Boys, college at Wake Forest University, and Appalachian State for graduate studies in Radio-TV-Film. In 1980 he attended The University of Texas Graduate Film School, where he was awarded a Student Academy Award in 1982. He founded HORIZON Film & Video, Inc. in Austin, and spent 28 years behind motion picture and video cameras producing and directing hundreds of films and videos of all genres, all the while honing his eye for balance and composition that would fuel his passion for photography. He is currently enjoying photography as his sole profession in Austin specializing in architectural, interior design and portrait photography - which feeds his bank account, but it is the abstract / fine art photography that feeds his soul.

Caldwell Arts Council’s programs are supported by the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources and by individual and corporate donors.

For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Council at 828/754-2486 or visit (www.caldwellarts.com).

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