NOW OPEN THROUGH JUNE 29
STRUCTURE
PHIL FREELON
PHOTOGRAPHS
FLIGHT OPENING JULY 13th
HARRIET BELLOWS, KATHRYN DEMARCO, LARRY DOWNING, BRYANT HOLSENBECK, PAUL HRUSOVSKY, CATHY KIFFNEY, JEAN LECLUYSE, LUNA LEE RAY, MATT TOMKO
Press-quality photographs can be downloaded below.
STRUCTURE
PHIL FREELON PHOTOGRAPHS
Extended until June 29th
CLOSING RECEPTION: THURSDAY, JUNE 27th, 5 – 7:30 pm
A discussion and slideshow with Phil Freelon and Maya Freelon about “Deep Roots, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture”.
Oprah Winfrey donates $12 million to Smithsonian’s African
American museum
The Washington Post
STRUCTURE
Photography has always been essential to the design vision and creative process of award-winning architect Phil Freelon. Craven Allen Gallery is proud to present the first major show of his work, “Structure: Phil Freelon Photographs,” opening Saturday, April 13th, with a reception from 5 to 7 pm.
From the exquisite symmetry captured in the moment when a single sculler rows down the center of an empty Arno River in Florence, to the painterly diptych of “Working Rust”, in which metal forms create patterns with the raw power of the best abstract painting, Freelon’s keen eye misses nothing. Nationally known as the architect of record for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture currently under construction on the mall in Washington, DC, as well as other important landmarks, including–locally–Durham Bulls Athletic Park, Freelon has honed his photographic vision throughout his long career, and sees a synergy between photography and architecture.
“Structure,” says Freelon, “is central to my design process, bringing a sense of order to the composition. My photographs examine the structure that exists all around us, both in the natural and built environment.”
The photographs are wide ranging, both still life and landscape. While many were taken on his international journeys, Durham features in beautifully toned black and white photographs of the city’s iconic architecture, as well as in incredible time lapse video installations of downtown, which capture the dynamism of the city’s growth and energy.
Freelon holds degrees from NC State, where he has taught photography in the College of Design, and MIT, where he is currently on the faculty. In 2011 he was appointed by President Barack Obama to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts.
The opening reception is catered by The Palace International, and will feature an appearance by award-winning jazz singer Nnenna Freelon.
The show continues through June 15th. Craven Allen Gallery is located at 1106 ½ Broad Street in Durham. Gallery hours are from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. For more information, please call the gallery at 286-4837 or visit www.CravenAllenGallery.com
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
STRUCTURE
Photography is one of the vehicles that I use to share my view of the world. As an Architect, the expression of Structure is central to my design process, bringing a sense of order to the final composition. These photographs examine the Structure that exists all around us – both in the natural and built environment. Behind the lens, I seek to capture those fragments of space and time that invite closer examination. Ambiguity and complexity rendered in crisp detail create the framework for this exploration of Structure.
Within the infinite possibilities of subject matter, composition and timing, the photographer decides what is compelling to her/him. Tripping the shutter confers importance to that moment. This is the prerogative of the photographer and it is this element of individual choice that intrigues me. While the design of complex structures is necessarily a collaborative endeavor, photography is a solitary undertaking – until the time that the finished product is shared.
ABOUT PHIL FREELON
Phil Freelon is the founder and president of The Freelon Group, Architects – an award winning 55 person firm based in Durham, NC. He studied photography while earning architectural degrees at NC State University’s College of Design and at MIT. In addition to teaching in the architecture departments at his alma maters, Freelon has taught basic, intermediate and advanced level photography courses at NC State’s College of Design.
A native of Philadelphia, PA and a long time resident of Durham, Phil has traveled extensively with a keen interest in expanding his vision through photography. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a recipient of the Loeb Fellowship from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. In 2011 he was appointed by President Barack Obama to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts.
Contact: John Bloedorn or Kathryn DeMarco, 286-4837 (info@cravenallengallery.com)
Press-quality photographs can be downloaded below.
TOM KREGEL: A LIFE’S WORK IN THREE DIMENSIONS
CHAD HUGHES: LIGHT PLAY – NEW PAINTINGS
February 23rd – March 30th
OPENING RECEPTION, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23 , 5 – 7 PM
Durham–The gallery is proud to present a retrospective of visionary artist Tom Kregel (1938-2002). Kregel’s astounding original sculptures and beautifully detailed drawings suggest narratives ranging from poetic melancholy to sly humor. This is the first major showing of his work since his untimely death in 2002, and features works in bronze and his signature cast stone. Kregel held a Master of Fine Arts degree from California State University in Los Angeles.
Also featured is Chad Hughes, a master of painting and a former Kregel colleague. For his latest work, Hughes takes inspiration from masters of abstract expressionism, bringing new vigor to the surface textures of his still life paintings. Hughes holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting and art history from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He currently teaches at North Carolina Central University.
Craven Allen Gallery is located at 1106 ½ Broad Street in Durham. Gallery hours are from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. For more information, please call the gallery at 286-4837 or visit www.CravenAllenGallery.com
ABOUT CHAD HUGHES
From a young age I was taught, and worked in a very representational manner, very classically. As my work evolved the representational quality remained but I have explored different venues of expression. Moving from figurative work to still life enabled me to become more expressionistic in the way the paint was applied, in essence the construction of the painting. I was fascinated with surface quality and transparency and the
abstraction that the two afforded the painting. Janet Fish and Richard Estes were inspirational. The overly loaded “tablescapes” allow me to investigate the brushwork and marks I make on the canvas. I am constantly intrigued with the construction of a painting and its resolution
Most recently I have simplified the compositions removing much of the patterns and color. Essentially I wanted to examine the surface quality and mark making in a more abstract and expressionistic manner. I have begun looking closer at Anselm Kiefer, Giorgio Morandi and Lucien Freud examing the surfaces and paint applications of their paintings. Although the image is still quite representational I am working on the quality of the marks and layers of paint. Ultimately I am excited when the painting can be observed from a variety of distances and create completely
different statements.
ABOUT TOM KREGEL
Tom Kregel’s (1938-2002) creative life explored a variety of media. Inspired by his unique view of the world, his works included drawing, painting, welded steel, bronze casting, photography and sculpture creations. Kregel used colorful materials to create juxtapositions of form, function, and narrative ranging from poetic melancholy to sly humor.
His last works were sculptures created by a unique procedure using cast stone, which was poured into clay impressions. The results were one-of-a-kind creations that were sealed and colored with oil and water-based pigments. Some of works are composed of only four or five pieces while others have as many as 41 different pieces that can weigh up to 60 pounds each.
Kregel received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Oklahoma, and his Master’s at California State University in Los Angeles. He completed apprentice work in the field of classical bronze casting, and also worked extensively with welded steel. Local North Carolina exhibitions included Artspace in Raleigh, the Fayetteville Museum of Art, Sawtooth Center for Visual Arts in Winston-Salem, Somerhill Gallery and the Cedar Creek Gallery Sculpture Invitational in Creedmoor. His work is in important private collections in the state and across the country.
Contact: John Bloedorn or Kathryn DeMarco, 286-4837 (info@cravenallengallery.com)
Press-quality photographs can be downloaded below.
SEA TO SHINING SEA
SHALLOTTE TO SEATTLE
NEW PAINTINGS BY SUE SNEDDON
OPENING NOVEMBER 17 th, 5 – 7 pm through JANUARY 19th
Durham –Triangle favorite Sue Sneddon returns with her 11th solo exhibition at Craven Allen Gallery, “Sea to Shining Sea (Shallotte to Seattle)”. The show features landscapes and seascapes inspired by a journey across the country, including travel by rail and ferry, as well as by car.
Sneddon’s work conveys the quiet grandeur of the American landscape in paintings ranging from intricate pastels to large oils on canvas. Scale is always relative in Sneddon’s art; sometimes the smallest images convey the largest ideas.
The exhibition opens with a public reception for the artist on November 17th, from 5 to 7 pm, and continues through January 19th.
SUE SNEDDON: ARTIST’S STATEMENT
The paintings in “Sea to Shining Sea” were inspired by a cross-country journey. The street that I live on ends (or begins) at the Shallotte River in North Carolina, and the river feeds into the Atlantic Ocean, just minutes from my home. Beginning there, the road unfurled like ribbon off a spool:
• Through North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
• Ohio, Indiana, Illinois to St. Louis, Missouri; then via Kansas to Denver, Colorado.
• Rocky Mountain National Park to Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.
• Idaho, Montana and Washington’s Palouse and Columbia River Gorge.
• A ferry from Seattle to Whidbey Island, Washington.
• A train from Seattle to Eugene, Oregon.
• A drive to Oregon Dunes State Park to complete sea to shining sea with my toes in the Pacific (58 and raining, so those toes were cold).
• And then a drive up to Cape Perpetua, Oregon to put the “shine” in shining sea.
The highway dipped and turned as I observed the rise and fall of the horizon line. If I wasn’t driving, I was sketching. If I was driving, I would ask my 13-year old companion to take photographs out the car window. States that I had never seen or thought much about took shape and color and light and shadow before my eyes. Landscapes that some might think boring revealed as much beauty as the more familiar vistas of postcards of tourist sights. (And Kansas is NOT boring!) I often say it’s hard to keep up with the excitement brought by each moment of traveling through this natural world, but this cross-country trip was a continuous revelation of scenes that would become strong visual memories. Then, reawakened by my notes and sketches, those memories distilled and have become the subjects of the pieces in this show. This body of work includes pastels and oils ranging in size from small 3 by 10 in., to 24 by 48 inches. Every state we traveled through is represented in this exhibition. Longer visits at Rocky Mountain and Grand Teton National Parks allowed time for more in-depth observation of mountain vistas, accompanied by local friends acting as wonderful tour guides. I want to thank all those friends, including my travelling companions, Grace Nordhoff and Jo Nordhoff-Beard, for their encouragement and support, and for making this show possible.
SUE SNEDDON: BECOMING AN ARTIST
One of my first memories of drawing was trying to figure out how a dandelion flower turned into a ball of small seeds with fluffy tops that could be carried by the wind. I was probably five at the time, and at that early age I was drawing what was in front of me—bugs, flowers, clouds, trees—realistically, so I could attempt to understand how nature worked.
I grew up in the beauty of the Allegheny Mountains and Laurel Highlands area of western Pennsylvania, in a family where creativity was highly valued. My mother and three aunts were all artists, and my father was trained as a classical violinist, but became a jazz enthusiast, along with my mother. My fascination with Carolina landscapes began on childhood vacations to Southern beaches.
I had my first thought of being a painter was when I was 13 or 14. My mother and I were discussing whether the pink in a bank of oyster shells was a reflection of the pink sky or in the shells themselves. We were on the south end of Pawley’s Island, SC witnessing a glorious sunset. I said to myself, if I could paint the joy I feel in this moment, then I could be a painter.
Most of my work, as it turns out, is exactly that—fleeting moments of light in the sky, on water, or on wet sand. These moments do something to me that I can only express by trying to capture them on paper or canvas. I continue to realistically approach a subject at first, so that it gets filed in my brain somewhere, to be called on when I want to express how I feel about the moment of a sighting that has moved me.
I live for these moments of joy and wonder and reverence. Whether or not there is a human figure in the work I create, I may also be influenced by a conversation, visit, walk, or relationship associated with a particular moment I am trying to capture. And although water-related subjects are the ones I most frequently choose, there are other landscapes that I have painted over the years, particularly rural settings of trees, fields, and aging barns and houses.
Mixing a palette of colors for an oil painting is very intense for me. This ritual signifies the commitment of many days, weeks, or months of painting to capture this one moment. The application of a medium onto a surface can transport me to that first inspiration. I may hear the water, wind, birds, or a song I was humming. My senses are filled as if I were witnessing it for the first time.
I work from memory. My memory is sometimes sparked by the notes/sketchbooks that are filled with these moments that I don’t want to forget. There are a lot of notes and sketchbooks. Sometimes I do see something and immediately paint it. But there can also be a long process of distilling an experience to its essential elements and then working to capture those in my work.
Oil, pastel, acrylic, pencil, gouache, watercolor, oil pastel, pen and ink, and mixed media all have a station in my studio. I like to have options in my choice of medium, and also in the music that accompanies my work day. My tastes there are eclectic, as well, ranging from jazz to rock-and-roll, to classical, to folk and other genres. All of my artwork seems to have a soundtrack.
I am fortunate to have a studio that gives me access to my main sources of inspiration and allows me to mark my time by sunsets, tides, moon phases, solstices, and equinoxes. My studio looks out onto the marshes of a tidal river, the Shallotte River. And a 10-minute drive takes me over a bridge to the Atlantic Ocean, the place I feel most alive, where that powerful body of water meets the soft sand, with the ever-changing play of light on water. There is no check-out time. I am so very thankful.
Contact: John Bloedorn or Kathryn DeMarco, 286-4837 (info@cravenallengallery.com)
Press-quality photographs can be downloaded below.
UNSCRIPTED: WORKS BY MARK BROWN, STEVE MCCLURE
AND CAROLINE VAUGHAN SHOWING JULY 28TH – SEPTEMBER 15TH
Durham —Unscripted: Paintings by Mark Brown, Prints and Paintings by Steve McClure, and Photographs by Caroline Vaughan, opens at Craven Allen Gallery on Saturday, July 28th from 5 to 7 pm. The show continues through September 15th.
“Unscripted”, sui generis: each of the artists in Craven Allen’s new show forge their own paths in artworks that are not easily categorized. Mark Brown’s formally beautiful, enigmatic paintings can be found in important collections in North Carolina and around the country. Vintage photographs inform much of Steve McClure’s latest work, but the images ultimately derive entirely from his own hand, whether he is drawing, painting or creating a print. Caroline Vaughan is one of North Carolina’s best known photographers, one of ten chosen by the North Carolina Museum of Art to collect in depth as the foundation of their N.C. photography collection. Unscripted showcases her ongoing interest in the naked human form, as well as her latest obsession: exploring the surprising synchronicities of fire and water.
Craven Allen Gallery is located at 1106 ½ Broad Street in Durham. Gallery hours are from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday throughFriday, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. For more information, please call the gallery at 286-4837 or visit www.CravenAllenGallery.com.
MARK BROWN: ARTIST’S STATEMENT
The new work I have chosen to exhibit in Unscripted consists of collages constructed of cut paper painted with acrylic polymer, and oil paintings on wooden panels. The impetus for this ongoing series originated in a 2004 walk in snowy woods near my studio, where I observed leafless trees against a gray winter sky. Shortly thereafter I was introduced to Franz Schubert’s song cycle Die Winterreise, which suggested a musical analogue for the atmosphere my series embodies. In 2011 I began to use the Roman arch as a thematic ‘armature’ for my current applications.
It would be expedient but inaccurate to define my work in Unscripted with what it is not: not political, not provisional, not academic, etc. I can describe it as rigorous, unwavering and hard-won. What it is for me, in process and essence, is necessary.
The bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. –Chinese proverb
-Mark Brown
MARK BROWN: BIOGRAPHY
Recognized by elementary school teachers for my artistic abilities, I received no art training until my high school years which were spent largely in Kentucky pool rooms. After a career as a photographer by which I successfully combined income and image-making, I began painting at night while teaching photography at Kentucky State University. I moved to North Carolina, became studio assistant to Herb Jackson at Davidson College, and was accepted into the graduate art program at UNC-Chapel Hill, then chaired by painter and former Artforum editor Peter Plagens. After working my way through graduate school by unloading tractor trailers, as a day laborer and with teaching assistantships, I rented studio space in an abandoned gas station and painted at night while supporting myself as a house painter. Diagnosed late with moderate dyslexia, my right-brain proclivities finally made sense to me.My wife artist Cathy Kiffney and I work full-time in our own studios outside Chapel Hill, NC.
My painting Winterreise 18 won the grand prize in the 2006 North Carolina Artists Exhibition, juried by Alison De Lima Greene, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. In 2007 images from the Winter series were projected as a theatrical backdrop for a performance of Winterreise at Wichita State University. Solo exhibitions of the series have been shown at the National Humanities Center, 5ive and 40rty Gallery in Winston-Salem, NC, and Somerhill Gallery. Exhibitions in North Carolina also include the North Carolina Museum of Art, Ackland Art Museum, Duke Museum of Art, DukeInstitute for the Arts, Davidson College Gallery of Art, Green Hill Center, Southeast Center for Contemporary Art, Durham Arts Council, Marita Gilliam Gallery, and Lee Hansley Gallery. I have exhibited in New York City at The Painting Center and E S Vandam Gallery, and in Philadelphia at Gallery Siano.
I was a finalist for a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and received grants and scholarships from UNC-Chapel Hill, the Durham NC Arts Council, Kent State University and the Vermont Studio Center. I was the featured interview at geoform.net, ‘an online scholarly resource, curatorial project, and international forum whose focus is the use of geometric form and structure in contemporary abstract art.’ My most recent solo exhibition was in 2010 at Flanders Gallery in Raleigh, NC. Upcoming exhibitions include the invitational five-person Independents at the Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art in Greensboro, NC in April 2013 and a solo exhibition at Gallery 1 at Artspace in Raleigh, NC in September 2014.
Public and corporate collections include Bernhardt Industries, Lenoir, NC; NITROX, Durham, NC (commission); Glencore Ltd., Stamford, CT; SEER Technologies, Cary, NC; Medco Research, Cary, NC; Sidley, Austin, New York, NY; and the Neiman Marcus permanent collection, (2 commissions).
STEVE MCCLURE: ARTIST STATEMENT
These recent prints illuminate untold stories from history, juxtaposing images of confederate prisoners, sphinxes, and whales with empty spaces and stages. My art probes the pictorial tension between landscape and narrative. Narrative is dependent upon the delineation of outlines that refer to matter. Landscape, by contrast, is a depiction of space in which matter is transformed by distance and begins to take on the musical qualities of time, history and, at the horizon, the future. The hand printed stone lithograph Sunshine After Rain, A Farce in Two Acts depicts an elaborate ‘historic’ stage presenting emptiness.
Obsolete photographic treatises and their conflicts with painting have particularly influenced these prints. I’m interested in the concept of the cameraless photograph, the idea of usefulness in an image, the aesthetics of class, and the concept of originality.
Many of these prints were made in collaboration with master printer Erika Schneider at Bleu Acier Inc in Tampa, Fl. Photogravure printing was invented in 1879 and the basic process is to photographically transfer an image to a metal plate, etch the image on the plate then print from it. Stone lithography is a method of printing that utilizes a limestone slab and relies on the principle of the repulsion of oil and water.
STEVE MCCLURE: BIOGRAPHY
Steve McClure’s paintings, prints and works on paper have been exhibited in group and solo shows throughout the south and northeast. Recent exhibitions include Visions at the Block Gallery in Raleigh, New Prints/2011 at the International Print Center in NY, and Art on Paper at the Weatherspoon Museum in Greensboro. He is the recipient of two winter fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, a Special Editions Residency at the Lower East Side Printshop, and the AIM residency at the Bronx Musuem of Arts.
Mr. McClure was born in Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated from the University of South Florida. While living in Durham from 1995 to 2003 he opened the Willie Shaker Gallery, an artist run gallery space, and produced the experimental noise show Collective Media Project on WXDU 88.5. Steve currently resides in Brooklyn.
CAROLINE VAUGHAN: ARTIST STATEMENT
I attended Duke University to pursue my passion to become a writer and studied with the late Reynolds Price, and the late Dr. Blackburn. But by the time I had finished my studies in narrative writing, I became increasingly non-verbal as I had difficulty knowing what voice to use as there was not an androgynous voice. My script turned to photography a non-verbal way to express my emotions. Photography, or “writing with light” opened a passageway to express the emotional velocity of my thoughts by weaving both my male and female narrative voices into my images. This non-verbal medium of images tapped into my subconscious, and drove me to open myself up with less censorship to see what was inside of me. This clarified the people, places and objects that held special meaning to me, and resonated with my past experiences and dreams.
I have always been interested in the scars, lines and topography of the natural world as well as the human body; the face as it ages, how people’s hands inform us of their unique gestures, their signature style. Self-expression of the younger generation fascinates me: piercings and tattoos needled into the flesh of those who need to individualize themselves in a culture that is becoming increasingly more diverse.
This journey, with my camera as passport, has found me searching for places and people who have allowed me into their culture or private lives. That dialogue sustains me. Most of all, I need that connection to feel alive: to resonate with another form of energy and find the gift of equilibrium between myself and another.
CAROLINE VAUGHAN: BIOGRAPHY
While Caroline studied English at Duke there were no photography classes which allowed her to seek out the mentorship of John Menapace, and to become one of three co-founders of the first student publication dedicated to photography as a fine art. Latent Image I was produced in her senior year when she and her co-founders invited Minor White to campus. She studied with Minor White as the only female in a seven student graduate class from 1971-1972. Her study in photography also allowed her to work with Murray Riss at the Penland School in North Carolina in 1970 and John Menapace in 1974.
Ms. Vaughan participated in Polaroid’s Young Artists’ Program from 1971 for about ten years and received additional support from Polaroid in 2007. She received a N. C. Fellowship in 1990, as well as a grant from The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke. In 1996, Duke Press, with an introduction by the late Reynolds Price, published her monograph, Borrowed Time: Photographs by Caroline Vaughan, Durham and London. She was also published in Quartet: Four North Carolina Photographers, by Safe Harbor Press in 2004. Museums that have collected Vaughan’s work include, among others: The Addison Gallery of American Art, MA; The Amon Carter Museum, TX; The Museum of Fine Art, Houston, TX; The Polaroid Collection, MA; and The Gregg Museum, The North Carolina Museum of Art, The Cameron Museum, and The Mint Museum in North Carolina. Additionally, her work has been published in Camera (Switzerland); Zoom (France); and Aperture (USA). Retired from working in fund raising at Duke for 25 years, Caroline is learning digital photography and taught at Penland in 2007.
Durham — That Was Then: Paul Hrusovsky and George Jenne, opens with a reception for the artist on May 19th, from 5 to 7 pm.
That Was Then reunites George Jenne, a Rhode Island School of Design faculty member and current UNC-Chapel Hill Teaching Fellow, with his early mentor Paul Hrusovsky, the well-known Triangle artist and arts advocate. The gallery will be transformed as Hrusovsky’s brilliant canvases play against Jenne’s provocative installations.
The show continues through July 7. Craven Allen Gallery is located at 1106 ½ Broad Street in Durham. Gallery hours are from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. For more information, please call the gallery at 286-4837 or visit www.CravenAllenGallery.com.
BEVERLY MCIVER: SMALL WORKS
Durham — Beverly McIver: Small Works, opens with a reception for the artist on February 25th, from 5 to 7 pm. McIver will also give a painting demonstration and gallery talk on March 24 from 5 to 7 pm.
While viewers can see a major retrospective of Beverly McIver currently at the North Carolina Museum of Art, Small Works offers a portrait of the artist working in a more intimate scale, and features mixed media works on paper and monoprints, as well as her signature oils on canvas. The exhibition showcases some very personal pieces; text, sewing—a craft she learned from her mother—and collage feature in many of the paintings. Although smaller in size, the artworks in Small Works have the beauty and power of self-revelation so evident in her largest paintings. Also on view will be a recent portrait of the artist by her mentor, Philip Pearlstein. A documentary about McIver, Raising Renee, will be featured in February on HBO. Beverly McIver was recently named “Top Ten in Painting” in Art in America.
Portrait of Beverly McIver by Philip Pearlstein
The show continues through April 7. Craven Allen Gallery is located at 1106 ½ Broad Street in Durham. Gallery hours are from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. For more information, please call the gallery at 286-4837 or visit www.CravenAllenGallery.com.
ABOUT BEVERLY MCIVER
Beverly McIver, named in 2011 as one of the “Top Ten in Painting” by Art in America, was born in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1962. She is the youngest of three girls born to Ethel McIver. Her oldest sister Renee is mentally disabled. Renee is 48 but has the mindset of a second grader. Beverly is Renee’s legal guardian and they currently reside in Durham, North Carolina.
Beverly is widely acknowledged as a significant presence in contemporary American art in general and has charted a new direction as an African American woman artist. She is committed to producing art that consistently examines racial, gender, social and occupational identity. Her sister Renee is a frequent subject of the artist as well as other family members.
Her work is in the collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Weatherspoon Art Museumin Greensboro, N.C., the Baltimore Museum of Art, the NCCU Museum of Art , the Asheville Museum of Art, The Crocker Art Museum and the Nelson Fine Arts Museum on the campus ofArizona State University.
She is currently the Suntrust Endowed Chair Professor of Art at North Carolina Central University. Prior to this appointment, McIver taught at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ. for twelve years, Duke University, North Carolina State University and North Carolina Central University. She has also held residencies at many of the nation’s leading artist communities, including YADDO, the Headland Center for the Arts, Djerassi, and Penland School of Crafts. She has served on the board at Penland School of Arts and Crafts and currently serves on the board of directors at YADDO in Saratoga Springs, NY.
McIver’s work has been reviewed in Art News, Art in America The New York Times and a host of local newspapers. She has received numerous grants and awards including the Anonymous Was A Woman Foundation grant, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, a Radcliffe Fellowship from Harvard University, a Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation award, a distinguished Alumni Award from Pennsylvania State University, a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award and Creative Capital grant.
Raising Renee, a documentary film by Academy Award-nominated and award-winning filmmakers Steven Ascher and Jeanne Jordan will have its television premiere on HBO in February, 2012. The feature-length documentary follows the artist for six years, documenting the consequences of her promise to take care of her mentally disabled sister Renee after their mother dies.
McIver’s solo exhibition at the North Carolina Museum of Art , Reflections: Portraits by Beverly McIver, continues through June 24, 2012.
McIver earned a bachelor’s degree in art from North Carolina Central University, a master of fine arts degree in painting from Pennsylvania State University and an honorary doctorate from North Carolina Central University.
