For the first time in more than ten years, eastern North Carolina will host the North Carolina Arts Council’s visual arts fellowship recipients in an exhibition at the Rocky Mount Arts Center, Fellowship Show, scheduled to open this week.
“We are delighted to work with the Rocky Mount Arts Center to showcase these exceptional artists,” said Mary B. Regan, executive director of the N.C. Arts Council. “Professional artists working in North Carolina make our cities vibrant and are building our creative economy.”
Open through September 21, the exhibition explores North Carolina’s finest artists: Southern and Appalachian craft traditions and traditional women’s roles through the work of Terri Dowell-Dennis; the rural areas of North Carolina’s Piedmont through the photography of Carlos Gustavo; interiors represented in high-end shelter magazines through the oil paintings of Page Laughlin; and the curves and glazes of works by Jerilyn Virden, to name a few.
“We want to continue to expand the ways in which artists are recognized for their abilities and contributions and the ways they add value to our state,” said Jeff Pettus, the visual arts director for the N.C. Arts Council. “We want to be a state that values its artists, a state where artists can, quite simply, make a living.”
Held in conjunction with the fellowship award cycle, the exhibition features work from the following artists:
- Ken Abbott (Asheville), inkjet prints from film
- Terri Dowell-Dennis (Winston-Salem), various media
- David Finn (Winston-Salem), carvings
- Donald Furst (Wilmington), etching
- Joshua M. Gibson (Durham), film
- Carlos Gustavo (Winston-Salem), photography
- Page Laughlin (Winston-Salem), oil painting
- Jody Servon (Blowing Rock), photography
- elin o’hara slavick (Chapel Hill), archival digital print
- Gay Smith (Bakersville), pottery
- Jerilyn Virden (Bakersville), sculpting
- Glenda Wharton (Winston-Salem), pencil
- Jeff Whetstone (Durham), photography
- Sherri Lynn Wood (Durham), quilts
“The current Fellowship Show is a celebration of highly talented artists and some amazing artwork. In addition, the hope is that the Imperial Art Center will appropriately play its role in helping these cultural artifacts become artistic reference points for succeeding generations,” said Ron Graziani, the guest curator for the exhibition.
The fourteen artists were selected from more than 300 applicants during the selection process for the 2006-07 visual arts fellowships. The program is one of the ways that the North Carolina Arts Council supports artists who live and work within North Carolina communities. The fellowship awards operate on a two-year cycle, with a call for visual artists every other year.
An opening reception will be held Friday, June 6 from 7-9 p.m. and admission to the exhibition is free and open to the public.
The Rocky Mount Arts Center was renovated from the 1920s era Imperial Tobacco of England and Ireland warehouse and has been a community cornerstone for the arts since its open in January 2006. The center is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and on Sunday 1-5 p.m.
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