Friday, from 6-8 p.m., a reception will celebrate the new summer exhibits opening at Waterworks Visual Arts Center.
Artists exhibiting include Doug McAbee and Barbara Schreiber, Marge Loudon Moody, Whitney Peckman, Sharif Bey, Hannah Thompson and Don Green.
Except for Green’s sculpture, which will be exhibited through 2010, the exhibits will run through Aug. 22.
“Art is a conversation between the artist and the viewer,” says Salisbury artist Whitney Peckman. ” It is a conversation which speaks both about and to creative energy, ideas, the integrity of original work and the thoughtful deliberation of the viewer.”
A founding member of EastSquare ArtWorks in downtown Salisbury, Peckman believes that art-making requires a spiritual release, an opening of the creative self, in order to unleash the spontaneity of raw imagination necessary for making truly original art.
Peckman begins a painting with a single layer of basic color and mass. She adds layer after layer of colors and textures until she feels herself respond creatively to the route the painting was meant to take.
A self-taught artist, Peckman spent 30 years weaving tapestries before taking up painting. She has exhibited her work in Charlotte, Winston-Salem, and Raleigh as well as Arizona, Illinois, and Colorado.
In “Shared Delusions,” Spartanburg sculptor Doug McAbee and Charlotte artist Barbara Schreiber team up to create a bright world of childlike shapes and colors that appear innocent at first glance.
However, closer inspection reveals ideas and themes that are strange, unfamiliar, sinister, and even disturbing.
McAbee earned a BA in art and an MFA in sculpture with a minor in drawing from Winthrop University. Since 2000, he has held more than 30 shows throughout the Carolinas. He currently teaches at Winthrop University and resides in Spartanburg, S.C.
Schreiber creates small works on paper executed in a style similar to that of children’s book illustrations. At first glance, her drawings and paintings seem colorful and cute; however, a closer look at her work reveals startling themes of political controversy, violence, and corrupted innocence.
Schreiber will give a free artist lecture at Waterworks at 7 p.m. June 18.
Schreiber, who lives in Charlotte, studied at the Atlanta College of Art in Georgia and earned a BFA from the Maryland Institute’s College of Art in Baltimore. She has exhibited nationally and internationally in more than 100 solo and group exhibitions.
In her colorful acrylics on canvas, Marge Loudon Moody intuitively manipulates line, shape, space, and color to create images of places. Her art comes directly from her experiences of different locales in an overarching theme she refers to as ‘Other Worlds.’ This quest led her to paint several series, such as the ‘Italy Series,’ in which she explores views of the Italian city and country; ‘New York Minutes,’ which seeks to express the many sights of that energetic metropolis; the ‘Studio Series,’ which pictures her painting work space; and the ‘Home Series,’ a body of work depicting areas in and around her home in Rock Hill, S.C.
Yet, a viewer would be hard pressed to find a Tuscan sunset, skyscraper, an easel, a house or any other object within her compositions. In these paintings, Moody relies solely on abstraction to recreate the “essential nature” of her subjects.
Moody studied painting, drawing, and education in Edinburgh, Scotland. She has taught art at Winthrop University in Rock Hill since 1988. Moody has held dozens of solo and group exhibitions since 1998.
Moody will present a free gallery talk at the Waterworks Visual Arts Center at 5:30 on Friday, June 5 prior to the summer exhibitions’ opening reception.
Winston-Salem artist Sharif Bey creates wearable ceramic sculptures. His powerful works of art reference African-American cultural identity as well as the idea of function as an artistic concept.
Pieces such as Bird Spirit and Sundial and Water Vial incorporate strands of red, yellow, blue and black beads that reference African-American cultural pride. In Bey’s work, this traditional, historical significance of self-adornment asserts itself over modern African-American youth culture, where platinum and diamond jewelry is symbolic of personal power and wealth. Originally from Pittsburgh, Bey earned a BFA in ceramics from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, an MFA in Studio Art from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and a PhD in Art Education from Penn State University. He currently teaches art education courses at Winston Salem State University.
Through August 2010, the metal artwork of Winston-Salem sculptor Don Green will be on display in the Stanback and Cook Sensory Gardens. One can clearly see the artist’s interest in death, decay, and erosion in his sculptures’ rusting surfaces. When exposed to oxygen, metals containing iron will naturally form iron oxide, i.e. rust. The act of rusting, a natural form of chemical evolution, establishes an important symbol of the altering effects of time and nature.
Green has an advertising art degree from the American Academy of Art in Chicago, a BFA from Illinois Wesleyan University and an MFA from the University of Wisconsin. He has been a member of Art Works Gallery Co-Op since 1994; he is represented by Gallery 9 of Blowing Rock, North Carolina and Art Works Gallery of Winston-Salem.
In addition to the Waterworks’ exhibition, Don Green’s sculpture Tecton #9 can be viewed in Magnolia Park off West Innes Street in downtown Salisbury as part of the 2009-10 Salisbury Sculpture Show.
Gallery hours are Monday – Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursdays, the gallery stays open until 7 p.m. Saturday hours are 10 a.m.-4 p.m. For more information, call 704-636-1882.