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Juror favors a realistic approach to painting at Fayetteville Art Guild's competition
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| By: SONI MARTIN, Up & Coming Weekly, November 2-8, 2005 |
November 02, 2005 |
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Edwina Clark's batik painting titled "Woman" won her a first place award in the Fayetteville Art Guild's annual competition. Clark, a recognized batik artist in the region, is known for her interpretation of the female figure solo or in groups.
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One of 39 works, Clark's batik hangs at the Fayetteville Arts Council among works by professionals, amateurs from the region and students studying art formally in area colleges and universities.
The richly colored batik by Clark is in strong contrast to the black and white pen and ink drawing by Angela Newsome. A junior art student at Fayetteville State University, Newsome took the second place award with her pen and ink drawing titled Construction Site. She used a digital photo taken outside the drawing room's window, then freehanded the image onto a piece of large drawing paper. Drawing contour lines as a guide, she reduces nature to a range of tones using hatching and cross hatching techniques. Focusing on composition and detail, Newsome makes an otherwise debris filled landscape into a construction zone of light and dark patterns and textures.
Third place award was earned by Sandy McFarland for Holiday Cottage. Look carefully along the gallery wall or you might miss McFarland's colored pencil drawing due to its diminutive size - the drawing measures approximately 4 inches x 7 inches and is highly detailed. Snugly fit into a scenic mountain landscape, the focal point of the small drawing is the orange metal roof of the cottage amidst a green and umber mountain landscape.
Linda Hester and Sherry Young both won merit awards. Both Hester and Young investigate the idea of representative realism. Hester focus's on the still life, while Young is figurative. Placing the merit works next to the award winners, it becomes readily clear - the juror has a preference for a representational approach to image making. The juror, David Hewson, is himself a realistic painter and concentrates on realistic details in his oil paintings and the gold gilded surfaces he applies to his work. Hewson's paintings are carefully composed, his surfaces blended into a smoothly brushed surface. His preference for detail and reference to realism is self evident in his choices for the awards in this year's annual competition by the Fayetteville Art Guild's titled Forever Art.
For this competition, artists in the region were invited to submit up to two entries of original two-dimensional and three-dimensional art works never before exhibited in Cumberland County. Artists from surrounding counties submitted works in pastels, oil, batik, silk painting, and watercolors.
Of the 39 works selected to hang in the competition, some of the more experimental or expressionistic approaches to painting were overlooked for awards, yet are equally powerful. The small painting titled "Cactus" by Sheila Morris demands an audience. The painting dominates the wall it hangs on in the gallery due to its rich color and quirky mix of realism, surrealism and design. Morris flattens the space behind a flowering bulbous-like catus into bands of color.
Courtney Hummel entered an expressionistic work on paper titled "2:00 A.M. at Jack's Tap." A monoprint in earth tones - browns, yellow ochre and white are smudged across the surface in a series of textured abstract forms. The title of the work begs the question - what is she expressing about what happens at 2 a.m. in this pub?
Rose Ann Bryda's painting titled "G.S. and the P.S. for..." is a work which warrants attention. In Bryda style, a figurative image is behind a screen of pattern and repeating design. Small in size, the painting is a glance of contemporary culture, an interpretation of today's veiled identity of other.
Located at the Arts Center of Fayetteville in the historic downtown area, visitors to the Art Center are welcome to view the exhibit and see the results of what the Fayetteville Art Guild has sponsored. The Guild's annual competition acknowledges it's 29-year-old existence as an organization. Sheila Morris, president of the Guild, said its purpose is to create an opportunity for local and regional artists to exhibit and compete. In May, the Guild hosts a members exhibit at the Cape Fear Studios. Morris and the Guild members welcome new memberships.
Artists interested in joining the Fayetteville Art Guild or obtaining information should contact Morris at 910-829-1208. The Guild meets each third Monday at 5:30 p.m. in the lower level of the Fayetteville Museum of Art behind Utaw Shopping Center on Stamper Road.
Forever Art can be viewed at the Arts Center until Nov. 18, 2005. Admission to the Arts Center is free. For operating hours and other events call the Arts Center at 910-323-1776.
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©Up & Coming Magazine 2009
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