1000 x 90

Carlton Gallery Features “The Landscape,” Hosts 33rd Spring Group Exhibition on Saturday

A new season beckons in the High Country and Carlton Gallery opens its 33rd Spring Group Exhibition from 2-5 p.m. on Saturday, May 23. Gallery owner and curator Toni Carlton invites everyone to the gallery for an artists’ reception, where some of the gallery artists will be present to meet visitors and patrons. Light refreshments will be served and this exhibition is without charge.

Amy Sullivan - Elegant Creature - 48x60 LG
Amy Sullivan, “Elegant Creature” 48×60

The 33rd Spring Group Exhibition features “The Landscape – Masculine and Feminine” by Kevin Beck and Amy Sullivan, a collection of landscape paintings expressing intensified realism and intuitive exploration of simplicity.

Local artist, Kevin Beck is known for paintings that project colors, shadows and the atmosphere of the landscape. He begins most of his work on location even when snow is on the ground. Beck renders his landscapes to bring out the beauty found in all four seasons. His plein air work is usually smaller in size serving as reference for larger work painted in his studio.

He is also a noted instructor in plein air and studio painting, as he is methodical, articulate and very thorough in showing the necessary steps and composition to render a good painting. His July 21-23 workshop at the gallery will enable one to learn or refresh the techniques required to paint a beautiful landscape.

The landscapes of Amy Sullivan are rendered using a process of oil and wax. She says she is fascinated with negative spaces contradicted by positive mark-making. Her large paintings are designed to capture this intrigue and paradox. She carves into the wax and paint, penetrating masses of space with sharp edges thereby responding to the tension of defining space and object. Sullivan‘s large paintings convey an atmospheric and sensual quality that is elusive but also familiar.

Sullivan earned a bachelor’s degree in Interior Design from the University of Tennessee which launched her onto a creative path that led to many years in the world of decorative painting. Her work has been purchased for television shows, appears in print magazines and in many private collections.

This Spring Group Exhibition is filled with artwork in many media by the gallery’s local, regional and national artists, including new gallery artists –Dottie Leatherwood, Eddie Kent Tallent and Lisa Boardwine. Leatherwood’s impressionist oil landscapes capture on canvas nature at its finest. Tallent renders the landscape in pastels and dry brush water color while Boardwine paints non-objective abstracts in cold wax and oil.

New landscape paintings by gallery artists Connie Winters, Andrew Braitman, Sharon Rusch Shaver, Jane Desonier, Ray Byram, Linda Apriletti, Egi Antonaccio, Helen Farson and Mary Martha McKinley fill the gallery with the beauty and splendor found in local/regional scene and vistas.

Contemporary Cityscape paintings by Gina Strumpf, Figurative works by Warren Dennis; Water Color/Pen and Ink by Alan Gordon, along with Water Colors by Freeman Beard and Pen/Ink drawings by Brian Carney are rendered in subject matter such as street scenes, whimsical figures, streams, barns, waterfalls, and wildlife.  Their paintings and details of the drawings capture nature’s creation and human emotion awareness.

Mixed media paintings by Toni Carlton, Martha Olson, Marion Cloaninger and Debbie Arnold are rendered by creating surfaces using texture, calligraphy, and color, along with mixed materials. Each uses an articulate technique to define the interpretations of their work.

Blown and assembled glass, metal and clay sculpture, turned and carved wood, fiber wearable art and jewelry by the talented artisans the gallery represents contribute an added dimension to the 33rd Spring Group Exhibition at Carlton Gallery which runs through July 15.

The gallery is located 10 miles south of Boone and 7 miles north of Linville on N.C. Highway 105 S. in the Grandfather Mountain community near the entrance to Seven Devils. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday.

For additional information on artists, exhibitions or workshops, call 828-963-4288 or visit the gallery online.

Kevin Beck - Change - oil painting-19X20
Kevin Beck, “Change” oil painting 19×20