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September Issue 2003
Davidson County Community College in Lexington, NC, Features Harmony Exhibit
Harmony is the theme for the Fall art exhibit at Davidson County Community College in Lexington, NC, which continues through Dec. 12, 2003, in the Mendenhall Building on the college's Davidson Campus.
Several of the eight exhibiting artists have chosen different media and styles to capture their subjects. Some have focused on nature as the subject matter, others used nature to inspire their more abstract renderings, and the remaining demonstrate a mere fascination with the media.
Six of the artists are from NC and the remaining two from GA and VA. The featured artists and their media include Diane Amato of Chapel Hill, NC, (photography); Jeffrey Bliss of Reidsville, NC, (acrylic paintings and color photography); Sandra Cieszewski of Winston-Salem, NC, (pastels), Jeannine Cook of Townsend, GA, (silverpoint); Amy Funderburk of Winston-Salem, NC, (pastels, oils and photography); Farida Hughes of Chatham, VA, (oils and gouache - opaque watercolors); Helen Marie Smith of Winston-Salem, (oil pastels); and Mona Wu of Winston-Salem, (printmaking).
Amato stated the art of photography is capturing an image that will evoke an emotion. "This body of work reflects my enthusiasm of working with alternative processes. It incorporates the use of black and white infrared film and a blue metal salt toner," she said. "Used together, these two techniques provide an ethereal effect. My hope for my work is a connection by shared enjoyment between the viewer and myself."
Bliss discovered a love of nature in his early youth in the New York state countryside. "I quickly developed an interest in photographing not the grand but the sublime, small focal areas of interesting light patterns, color combinations, etc.," he said in summarizing his style. "This still dominates my work today. I am translating this photographic experience onto canvas, studying the interplay of color, light, form and mood on a freestyle landscape."
Cieszewski developed an understanding of color and design, reflection of light, and textures of materials in a scientific career that was very structured and confined. "My use of design and color in my pastel artwork today is less structured, impressionistic, and boundless," she said. "For now, I am enjoying the rhythm and patterns of natural things in the context by not being confined by man-made places."
Cook's unique art technique began as a child in East Africa watching her grandfather develop black and white prints in a darkroom. "Their monochromatic beauty ultimately contributed, I now realize, to my fascination with the drawing medium of silverpoint," she explained. "Its intensity of execution allows me to concentrate on the familiar. I reaffirm connections with my sense of place, with rhythms of tides and seasons, with light moving, changing, transforming everything. For me, silverpoint is a subtle, quiet medium that provides a counterpoint to today's high voltage world."
Funderburk works in pastels, oils and photography - all inspired by her journeys to Ireland. "Going to Ireland creates a sense of longing for something you didn't realize you were missing and a void that can only be filled by returning," she stated. "From cottages to castles, sheep to cows, burial mounds to stone circles, gnarled groves to stately trees, here is the sheer magic of the country that is gossamer clouds and ephemeral light on heather-clad, windswept mountaintops. I present the ancient yet timeless, inspiring land of Eire."
Hughes noted there is a tenuous balance between beauty and boldness in her art, echoing the passions of our times. "It is delicate, yet is formed in a manner that is substantially tough and gritty," she explained. "It speaks of states of being, as surface and movement become metaphoric representations of our own movements in this world."
Smith, in addition to being an artist, is the owner of Quantum Art in Winston-Salem which specializes in fine art and pottery. "My art is a type of visionary interpretation of human perceptions and experiences," she said. "I work from a level of meditative-subliminal mind, playing with colors as 'musical notes' to weave an artistic composition using various mediums."
Wu, selected as Winston-Salem Artist of the Year in 2003, studied Chinese painting and calligraphy in Hong Kong and taught Oriental Brushstroke painting in Winston-Salem. Her new medium is printmaking.
"I hope to find a 'happy hybrid' way to express my thoughts and creativity," she said. "I deal mostly with surface design with an Asian motif. I have studied and am still deeply interested in the ancient art form of the Chinese written words, so I have incorporated by calligraphic elements into my prints."
For more info check our NC Institutional Gallery listings or call 336/249-8186.
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