Please click on one of the styles of painting below to go to that section.
Landscape
Jacob Cooley
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Jacob Cooley is one of North Carolina’s treasures. He received an MFA in painting from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1993, and his BFA from University of Georgia, Athens. He creates intriguing landscapes with unique qualities of light. His work has been included in numerous corporate and private collections including the Mayo Clinic, Duke University Museum of Art, Ford Motor Co., SAS Institute, John Deere, Burroughs Wellcome Foundation, Enpro Industries, SPX Corp., U.S. Embassies in Jordan and Australia, and the Ackland Art Museum.
“In his paintings, human intervention is nonexistent or remains minimal; nature regains integrity. Cooley’s hand is either effaced from the surface or restricted to non-idiosyncratic, space-creating brushstrokes, so that time and signs of personal ego are obliterated. …Cooley’s paintings elude temporal specificity; we cannot tell if we are looking at the distant past or a restored future.”
-Linda C. Hults, Exhibition Curator, Professor of Art History, The College of Wooster
Christopher Stephens
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Chris Stephens uses vibrant colors to portray the sweeping landscapes of the Shenandoah Valley. Stephens holds an MFA from James Madison University. His work can be found in numerous collections including SAS Institute, American Express, Bell Atlantic, First Union National Bank, Wachovia Bank & Trust, Duke Energy, Lowe’s, and UNC Women’s and Children’s Hospital.
Gayle Stott Lowry
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The paintings of Gayle Stott Lowry are places that we see as if in a dream. Dichotomies abound as sensations of “Absence” vacillate with “Presence” in both her architectural and landscape works bathed in light. There is a disquieting sense of abandon and hope that challenges our desire for finality.
Exhibitions throughout the Southeast have activated strong interest in this body of work. The work of Gayle Stott Lowry can be viewed in selected institutional and corporate Collections which include the Rex Hospital in Raleigh, Renaissance Hotel, North Carolina Museum of Art, Duke Medical Center, IBM, Glaxo Smith Kline, Inc., and S.A.S. Institute.
Dana Johns
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Dana Johns graduated from University of Georgia in 1993 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Her work is deeply rooted in childhood memories of time spent outdoors. Her recent oil paintings attempt to depict the underlying spiritual and surreal aspects of nature. Painter George Inness, one of her influences, once wrote:
“The highest art is where there has been most perfectly breathed the sentiment of humanity. Rivers, streams, the rippling brook, the hillside, the sky, the clouds – all things that we see – can convey that sentiment if we are in the love of God and the desire of truth.” Johns’ work can be found in collections such as the University of Georgia, St. Regis Hotel in Atlanta, and the Hil at Serenbe.
Ruth Ava Lyons
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The work of Ruth Ava Lyons communicates a sense of mystery and meaning as it explores ideas of beauty, decay, loss, and redemption, in our tenuous relationship with the natural world. Forms emerge and disappear into veils of paint to suggest seen and unseen forces that surround us.
A Fulbright Fellow and MFA graduate of Cranbrook Academy of Art, she has received grants and awards from the Chautauqua Institution, the North Carolina Arts Council, the American Scandinavian Foundation, the North Carolina Print & Drawing Society and others. Lyons’ work has been included in over 100 exhibitions and numerous permanent collections include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Hearst Corporation, SAS Institute, the Federal Reserve Bank, New Orleans Museum of Art, Philip Morris USA, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
Maxx Morgan
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Maxx’s use of his dark palette and cold color combinations is very much in line with his belief that in the midst of the darkness is always a small flame of hope. His work has been shown in New Haven and Wallingford, CT, Charlotte, NC and New York, NY. In 2000, he also participated in a fashion exhibit at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City.
The Night Series, he states, “began as a way to capture the quiet time that occurs when the roads become still, thoughts are heard and reflection occurs. Painting the black sky is thrilling; so much is left to your imagination. Light becomes surreal and random signs that are dull during the day spring to life at night, exploding with colors.”
Scott Hill
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Scott Hill’s atmospheric paintings take us back in time. He is inspired by painters of the late 1800′s and his own childhood memories of Georgia. Hill’s works evoke a brooding mood as a result of a limited palette and the incorporation of several carefully painted layers of glazes. Scott received a BFA from the University of Georgia and his works are included in the collections of the Ritz-Carlton, STP, Inc, JPMorgan Chase, and Citizens State Bank.
Still Life
Scott Fraser
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The work of painter Scott Fraser is clearly linked to so-called “new realism” in his clean lines, precision technique, and strong compositions. But Fraser’s work is brimming with humor, mystery and layers of meaning, all exquisitely realized in oil paint. And Fraser’s universe, filled as it is with secret significance, is more open to interpretation.” __Marilynne S. Mason
Scott Fraser has studied at Kansas City Art Institute, University of Colorado at Denver and Arelierhaus, Worpswede, Germany. Selected Collections include The Philbrook Museum of Art – OK, U.S. West – CO, West Publishing Company -MN, Evansville Museum of Arts and Science – IN and the Flint Institute of Arts – MI. Fraser’s painting, Life Cycle II, was recently acquisitioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
Michael Fitts
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Michael Fitts is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University. He now lives and works in Charlottesville, Virginia and exhibits on the East Coast. His work is also included in the collection of Fidelity Investments.
Fitts focuses on capturing familiar objects. Textures and tones of the metal underneath are an important aesthetic variable in his minimal environments.
Katherine Grossfeld
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Katherine Grossfeld received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her BFA from The University of Denver , with studies at Studio Art International, Florence Italy.
Katherine Grossfeld turns her attention to everyday objects that are often overlooked. Toys, toiletries, folded laundry, nail polish, and other domestic items are removed from their original mundane context and presented in a new way to allow the viewer to consider the subject matter with a heightened appreciation. Subsequently the narrative of each painting is personalized by each viewer as they view it through the lens of their own life experience and private association. Her work is contained in many private collections and she resides in North Carolina.
“I am drawn to their beauty and fascinated by what these objects tell me about the world. My work represents my ongoing examination of culturally accepted ideas and patterns of behavior, based on what I experience within my own family or observe around me. I particularly enjoy examining my own ambivalence, as I simultaneously feel resistance to the confines of the role definitions these objects elicit, and attraction to the beauty before me”
Katherine Grossfeld
Abstract
Kevin Hogan
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Kevin Hogan is known for his provocative prints, paintings and installations and has exhibited extensively in the United States and Europe. Hogan was a McColl Center resident and continues to teach workshops with their Innovation Institute. His work can be found in many public and private collections including Kilpatrick Stockton, The Finley group, Carlisle and Gallagher, the Hearst Corporation and the Michener Collection. In 2000, the North Carolina Museum of Art commissioned Hogan to create an installation to be viewed during their Rodin exhibition.
Robert Boyd
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Boyd’s paintings are inspired by various forms of decay found in everyday environments, from algae and murky rivers to eroded metal. These seemingly base inspirations are transformed into beauty as he incorporates subtle layers of paint during his explorative process. Boyd distresses the panels to create rough areas of texture in his compositions before the paint is applied and utilizes found objects as tools to manipulate the paint.
A York, SC native, Robert resides in Charlotte and his paintings can be found in the collections of Thompson Financial, Cranfill, Sumner, and Hartzog, Alston and Bird, the Finley Group, and Las Ramblas Cafe.
Mixed Media
Carrie McGee
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Carrie McGee’s mixed media constructions explore variation within repeated forms. Utilizing transparent plastics as a ground, she experiments with natural and chemical processes, such as rust and oxidation, to create luminous works that emanate a meditative pulse.
Carrie received a Visual Arts Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts/Southern Arts Federation, as well as a residency fellowship from the Christoph Merian Foundation in Basel, Switzerland. Her work is included in such collections as the Tennesee State Museum, the Corporate Collections of Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue, and the Marriott Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee. Her paintings and constructions have been exhibited regularly for the past fifteen years.
Nancy Scheinman
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Nancy Scheinman received her MFA from the Washington University School of Fine Arts in St. Louis, Missouri. Her work is included in such collections as the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Baltimore Museum of Art, Fidelity Investments, The Fogg Museum at Harvard University, and the Portland Museum of Art.
As a visual storyteller, I weave together personal narratives and internalized landscapes. My images deal with the myth of a purer past within the framework of a modernist grid. -Scheinman
Yoko Iwanaga
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Yoko was born in Shizuoka, Japan and received her Masters from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Her work is in the collection of the Savannah College of Art and Design, Baylor Medical Center, Hotel Sheraton, and St. Joseph’s Candler Hospital. She has been featured on the cover of Gallery Guide (Southeast) and was chosen for the Savannah College of Art and Design advertisement in the New York Times Design and Living Winter 2008 Magazine issue.
Yoko is highly influenced by the Japanese belief in the will of nature. Her work combines childhood memories from the past with experiences from the present. Often, she expresses these instances using abstract form. She manipulates and blurs the images to allow some things to remain recognizable while others are unclear. In the busy society that exists today, Yoko is reflecting on childhood memories of nature such as the gaps of sunlight between leaves and the small plants on the roadside.
