April 2014

Durham Arts Council in Durham, NC, Offers Works by Laura Williams & John DempseyNorth Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, NC

The Durham Arts Council in Durham, NC, is presenting Under Botanical Influence, featuring works by Laura Williams, on view in the Allenton Gallery, through Apr. 27, 2014 and Between Landscape and Place, featuring works by John Dempsey, on view in the Semans Gallery, through Apr. 27, 2014.

Under Botanical Influence, the most recent series of photographs by Laura Williams, a Chapel Hill, NC, based photographer, began with collecting organic matter found on walks close to her home. As the organic objects dry out they become increasingly gestural. She randomly arranges the objects on layers of glass and photographs them through a variety of lenses. What she sees through the lens is another world.

Williams searches for an image that evokes a clear physical “feeling”-something that provokes a memory. She says, “The sensation of finding the right image is much like the recalling of a dream that lies just under the surface as you wake.” Laura Williams received a BFA from the University of Vermont and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Her work has been shown recently at Light, Art + Design in Carrboro, The Light Factory Annuale in Charlotte, the Kiernan Gallery in Lexington, VA, and The Framer’s Corner in Carrboro, NC.

Between Landscape and Place, by Michigan-based artist John Dempsey, is a series of paintings and laser photographs composed in order to confront a variety of environments and perspectives simultaneously. They bring together spaces such as factories, churches, government facilities, public spaces and landscapes to provoke an immediate response and comparison. These paintings compress the experience of our environment sequentially, by immersion and over real time, temporally, spatially and causally.

Dempsey is an Associate Professor of Art at Mott Community College in Flint, MI. Born in Detroit, MI, Dempsey earned his BFA from Michigan State University and his MFA from Central Washington University. He has two daughters who currently live and work in Durham, NC - Sarah and Meghan Dempsey.

For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Council at 919/560-2787 or visit (www.durhamarts.org).

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