20 on the 20th | Hidell Brooks Gallery

“Hidell Brooks Gallery is celebrating our 20th year anniversary with a group exhibition of new work by gallery artists. We have continued with out tradition of introducing our community to artists rarely exhibited in North Carolina along with a strong focus on Southern Contemporary artists. The anniversary exhibition is an excellent opportunity to view works by all of our artists.” – Hidell Brooks Gallery

The 20th Anniversary group exhibition at the Hidell Brooks Gallery marks the first exhibition that we’ve seen featuring all 45 artists that the gallery represents, including a new piece from artist David Kroll who was a part of the Hidell Brooks very first exhibition.

Before the exhibition opened, I had the opportunity to interview Katharine Hidell Thomas & Rebecca Brooks and you can read the interview here.

Herb Jackson, Rick Beck

Herb Jackson will be featured in a solo show in November, and his piece greets you as soon as you walk in. The bright pink in the center of the painting was the first thing that caught my eye. There’s another large piece one of the back room, where more work from the artist featured in the 20th anniversary exhibition are on view.

We were pleased to see that Rick Beck’s spoons were featured, we loved the wall of spoons and like gallery co-owner Katharine Hidell Thomas we would have been quite happy to have them up in the gallery forever!

Anke Schofield

When we visited before the exhibition, the pieces by Anke Schofield were eating to be hung up. I’ve always enjoyed her smaller pieces featuring birds on different objects. I had the chance to talk with Anke about her work in this interview last July.

Ruth Ava Lyons

I will always love these whimsy butterfly pieces by artist Ruth Ava Lyon. Per Katharine and Rebecca, each of Ruth’s paintings represents one of the fifty states, and the butterfly sightings in the state are written on the back of the paintings by the artist, an avid environmentalist.

Sally King Benedict, Johan Hagaman, Selena Beaudry

Selena Beaudry had a solo exhibition at the Hidell Brooks this year and the entire gallery morphed into a thicket, with entire walls made up of pieces of Selena’s cut out collages that are usually enclosed in glass like the work above. It was a truly immersive experience.

Sally King Benedict

Like Selena, Sally King Benedict was featured in a solo show at the Hidell Brooks Gallery earlier this year. The works featured in her exhibition ‘Lanai’ were inspired by a three-week trip that Sally and her family took to Hawaii over the Christmas holidays last year and the brilliant colors the artist used definitely show much the tropical landscape and surroundings of Hawaii inspired her.

Johan Hagaman

These new works were inspired by a wild vine that grew over my garden, completely transforming it into a design of its own. It was a call to wonder, a call to attention, a call to decide, “What is in your world?” these sculptures are symbolic evidence of this appeal to consciousness and imagination, but also suggest a larger story of how we shape and are shaped by ourselves and our world; how creation is it not fixed, but fluid, and ongoing. – Johan Hagaman

Jacob Cooley

Jacob Cooley was born in 1968. He received an MFA in painting from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1993 and graduated in 1990 with a BFA from the University of Georgia, Athens. – Hidell Brooks Gallery

Sarah Helser

Sarah Helser was born in High Point, North Carolina in 1980. She spent her formative years on a farm where she enjoyed the beauty and solitude of nature. Her childhood and young adulthood has had a major influence on her creativity as an artist. Sarah went on to study Fine Arts at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, where she refined her interests by focusing on the figure and the use of alternative mediums. – Hidell Brooks Gallery

When you view Sarah’s painting make sure you look for the leaf and crown which represent each of Sarah’s children.

Eric Aho

Eric Aho studied at the Central School of Art and Design in London, England and received a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. In 1989 he participated in the first exchange of scholars in over thirty years between the U.S. and Cuba. – Hidell Brooks Gallery

Eric Aho was another one of the artists who was featured in Hidell Brooks Gallery’s first show when they opened in 1998.

Tom Berg

Tom Berg is an artist known for his paintings of chairs which have been a focus of his work since his first chair paintings of the late 1970’s. however, his work has also incorporated subjects as varied as farm animals, architecture, clothes lines, swimming pools and hand tools, painted in a manner that moves across modes of landscape painting, still life painting and portraiture. – Hidell Brooks Gallery

Katy Schneider

Katy Schneider’s work deals with the power of light to tell a story in her figurative paintings as well as her exquisite still lifes. – Hidell Brooks Gallery

Tony Hernandez

Tony Hernandez was born in Atlanta in 1964 and has been painting professionally since 1988. While he is a Southern artist, his works are far from the region. – Hidell Brooks Gallery

Francis Livingston

Francis Livingston studied at the Rocky Mountain School of Art in Denver before moving to San Francisco in 1975 to attend the Academy of Art. He later taught there for 10 years. Influenced by Sargent and Whistler, Livingston painted primarily in a monochromatic style until he began to study the work of the Bay Area Figurative Movement, including Richard Diebenkorn, Wayne Thiebaud and others. – Hidell Brooks Gallery

Page Davis

Page Davis was born in Atlanta and now resides in Spartanburg, South Carolina. She recently received her MA from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Page is a full-time artist working in her downtown studio. – Hidell Brooks Gallery

Susan McAlister

To create her abstract landscapes, Susan McAlister applies multiple layers of paint, wax, marble dust and graphite. McAlister was featured in an exhibition alongside fellow arts Kate Long Stevenson in September 2017.

Philip Geiger

Geiger’s lustrous light, loose brushwork and subtle color tellingly capture the nuances of mood and feeling that make up the more peaceful moments of contemporary family life. – Hidell Brooks Gallery

Daniel Anselmi

Daniel’s work will be featuring in a exhibition this October along with fellow artist Todd Murphy. I’m looking forward to see the color variations the artist will choose for his mixed media collages.

My works on paper and canvas explore the use of paper as an ongoing dialogue between painting and collage. I use painted paper as one would handle a brush to elicit brushstrokes on canvas. – Daniel Anselmi

Christopher Terry

Christopher Terry was born in Stamford, Connecticut in 1956. He attended Rhode Island College in Providence, RI where he earned a BA in Studio Art in 1978. – Hidell Brooks Gallery

Katherine Ace

Ace’s paintings examine the figure and still life in surreal terms. The paintings synthesize unconscious experience with everyday objects. She has an ongoing fascination with both figurative and still life painting. – Hidell Brooks Gallery

Ron Porter

The pairing by artist Ron Porter is titled ‘Wading into Evening’ and I love how you are seeing the sunset through the back of the semi-truck. This painting is proof that there is beauty in the unexpected. Another painting by Ron Porter that I enjoyed from a previous exhibition was titled, ‘A swan critiques a Rothko after a tracking number is lost 2016‘ and it features a swam sitting on top of painting that has fallen out of an open FedEx truck.

Kate Long Stevenson

A life-long lover of music, Kate relies on mostly classical compositions to guide her as she builds a painting, layering chords of color over energetic swirls of charcoal and paint. – Hidell Brooks Gallery

Geraldine Neuwirth

Geradline handles paper in such a way that is only learned over time with a mature hand and a unique vision complied from a life full of experiences. – Hidell Brooks Gallery

The grid above is the largest of the grids featured in the exhibition, and feature all the bright colors and shapes that we look forward to in all of Geraldine’s pieces. Color always makes life a little bit sweeter, and Geraldine’s pieces are always so fun to see up on the gallery walls.

Mary Nelson Sinclair

Her abstract paintings have a strong visual language accentuated by her color palette and materials used to make her gestural makings. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. – Hidell Brooks Gallery

Page Laughlin

Page Laughlin was born and raised in Richmond VA. She received her Undergraduate Degree from the University of Virginia where she was an Echols Scholar, Phi Beta Kappa and a member of Psi Chi National Honor Society. – Hidell Brooks Gallery

John Folsom

For those of you who are new to John Folsom, he takes photographs, cuts them into squares, paints over them and then seals the art with beeswax. His work truly blends the art of photography and painting into one stunning creation. To see more of John’s work, here’s the piece on John’s exhibition last year along with fellow artist Mary Nelson Sinclair.

Brian Coleman

Brian Coleman received his degree in Graphic Design from the Art Institute of Charlotte. A practicing artist since 2003, Coleman is not a painter of social commentary—though his mixed-media works certainly reflect an emotional expression to which all viewers can relate. – Hidell Brooks Gallery

I took this picture of one of my favorite pieces by artist Scott Duce. I will always have a fascination with bubbles! Below is the complete grid of work by Scott for the 20th Anniversary Exhibition.

Scott Duce

David Kroll and Brigid Watson

David Kroll, one of the artist who has been with the gallery since the beginning will be having an exhibition featuring all new work this September. I fell in love with his painting featuring koi ‘swimming’ around a vase (that I featured in the interview post with Katharine and Rebecca) and I’m looking forward to seeing David’s upcoming exhibition.

I’m sharing my favorite of the three paintings Brigid Watson is featuring in the exhibition. I love the range of colors the artists uses, the textures and the strokes of the brush on the canvas.