Feature Articles

September Issue 2002

Somerhill Gallery in Chapel Hill, NC, Features Works by Barry Roal Carlsen & Tim Ford

Somerhill Gallery in Chapel Hill, NC announces a new exhibition of paintings by artists Barry Roal Carlsen and Tim Ford on view through Sept. 22. The works of these contemporary realist painters are overwhelmingly rich; charged with emotion, beauty,and quiet intensity. Rarely is work of such quality made available to the public eye.

Wisconsin artist Barry Roal Carlsen brings his works to Somerhill Gallery for this first opening of the autumn season. The paintings of this midwestern native are thought-provoking and romantic, majestic and fraught with mystery. Primarily landscapes, the works are instantly recognizable as more than a "typical" product of landscape painting. They are filled with blazing sunsets, lone figures, and hauntingly intriguing pyres which burn fiercely without explanation. The work is vastly open to interpretation, as Carlsen explains, "...opinions of a single work run from bright hope and optimistic to the deepest sense of loss."

Carlsen was born in 1957 in Omaha, Nebraska. He took his BFA at the University of Nebraska in 1980, then continued his arts education with an MFA in 1983 at the University of Wisconsin. Finding that state to be hospitable, he established a studio in Madison where he continues to live and work to this day. He has received numerous fellowships and awards, and has been exhibited nationally and in Europe. Numbered among these honors have been invitations to lecture at the University of Wisconsin, Northern Iowa University, Indiana State, and Madison Art Center.

On the other side of the gallery will hang the paintings of artist Tim Ford. Ford's discerning eye and extraordinary skill with the brush yields work that captures light and mood in an astonishingly accurate manner. Chairs often appear in the paintings, sometimes with daylight from a window draped over them. Another favorite element of Ford's is the human figure, which he renders with considerable mastery. People in Ford's paintings appear introspective and serious, seemingly quiet while stirring intense emotion within the viewer.

Ford is a North Carolina artist, currently living and painting full-time in Boone, where he also took his Bachelor's degree at Appalachian State University in 1981. He continued his studies at the UNC-Greensboro, taking an MFA in 1987 and receiving two scholarships as he did so.

Ford's works are in the collections of NationsBank, Glaxo, Duke University Medical Center, and First Union. Ford has exhibited many times across the state, winning awards at venues such as the Asheville Art Museum and the Fayetteville Museum of Art.

For more information check our NC Commercial Gallery listings, call the gallery at 919/968-8868 or email to (somerhill@mindspring.com).

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