February Issue 2002
Davidson County Community College in Lexington, NC, Hosts Works by Nine NC Artists
State of the Art: NC Artists will be the theme for the spring 2002 art exhibit at Davidson County Community College in Lexington, NC. Nine NC artists in a variety of media will be featured in the exhibit which is on view through May 15, 2002.
The featured artists are: Jewel Baldwin, Lauren M. Bobo, Sandra Ciezewski, Linda Ruth Dickinson, Jennifer Edwards, Amy Funderburk, Anna Hamilton, Pat Grams and Grace Li Wang.
Jewel Baldwin of Winston-Salem works in watercolor. Baldwin says, "I see beauty in almost everything and to me, everything is a potential painting." She attributes her eclectic choices of subject matter to this potential. "I am a detail person by nature, and this is quite evident in my work." The result of her work is a body of crisp, realistic watercolors.
Lauren M. Bobo of West End does both watercolor and pastel. "Color is what interests me the most," Bobo says. "Drawing is crucial to the end process but the journey to that end is exciting as colors merge and take on life of their own."
Of her work she expresses, "Every work is an adventure and nothing tops the thrill of having it all come together in a luminous, vibrant painting!"
Pastel is the chosen medium of Sandra Ciezewski of Winston-Salem. Cieszewski's life profession was science but her love for art was nourished and utilized throughout her career. She justified earning two degrees in both chemistry and art because, "the artists and the alchemists in earlier times went to the same banks of the river to get their pigments and minerals."
She now actively works in oils as well as pastels in a style she describes as unstructured, Impressionistic and boundless. Florals and landscapes are the subjects of her current work as she enjoys the rhythm and patterns of natural things.
Linda Ruth Dickinson of Chapel Hill does works in acrylic and sculpture. Born in the East to Western parents, the traditions and values of both hemispheres have informed her work. She describes her new abstract acrylic on canvas as continuing "the search for the expression of 'the invisible' in a synthesis of East/West thought yielding visual, mental, and spiritual pleasure/provocation. Many of my most recent paintings display a desire to visualize horizonscapes of reductive expanse. There is an attempt to suggest a transcendent perspective; one of inner tranquility that observes and embraces the declaration and dialog between Heaven and Earth with clarity."
Dickinson will be displaying related three-dimensional work as well as canvases.
Jennifer Edwards of Winston-Salem does work in pastel. As an artist, Edwards feels "inebriated by rich, full color." She feels transported to other worlds by shape, form and line as she plunges into putting on paper those things which stir this passion within her.
"Much of this is the beauty of the natural world around me, whether it is a garden landscape or a profusion of flowers," she shares.
Amy Funderburk of Winston-Salem who works in oil, pastel, and black and white photography, will be exhibiting work from her recent trip to Ireland in addition to regional landscapes in oil, pastel and photography.
"The mutable Irish sky constantly boasts amazing clouds as it casts an indescribable light quality on earth and water," Funderburk says. She also explains that the Emerald Isle is not just green but boasts a complex and constantly changing variety of hues, particularly at twilight.
Of her black and white photography, she says, "Through this monochromatic medium, one can see beyond the beguiling element of color. The abstract essence of the country is found within its values, shapes and varied textures."
Anna Hamilton of Winston-Salem does printmaking, oil and watercolor works. Hamilton hopes that her colorful artworks are like mazes with no exits. "After expressing myself in words all my life, I joined the art world in 1993 and gained a new vocabulary: line, color, pattern and movement."
She still prizes spontaneity above all. Her compositions, whether executed in printmaking, watercolor or oil, are abstract or non-objective, thus open to the viewer's interpretation.
Pat Grams of Winston-Salem, who uses colored pencil says that she looks at the manner in which she works as loosely figurative studies of nature. "Nature funds its essence in the activity of living with molecular structure in constant motion," she explains. Influenced by the dynamics of Impressionism as well as Expressionism, she depicts the emotions within herself that "wrap themselves around the objects I paint and draw."
Most often Grams works from her photographic studies from her travels or from natural objects in still life. Current colored pencil works look at the western desert topography and the wide-open spaces in Wyoming.
Grace Li Wang
Grace Li Wang of Cary works in mixed media, acrylic and pastel. "I want to create enduring images that become the active force in expressing colors and forms as in nature, with the emotional qualities that are strong and can go beyond the realm of words, says Wang. She describes strong colors as her visual language which allow her to express intense emotions about nature in her expressive work that connect the spiritual force of the soul.
For more information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings or call Teenie Binghamat 336/249-8186, ext. 239.
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