Three Artists, One Spectacular Exhibition at the Hidell Brooks

This past Friday, a brand new exhibition featuring three artists opened up at the Hidell Brooks Gallery. It’s always so exciting to take in a new show, and we even had the opportunity to meet one of the artists, Ruth Ava Lyons while we were there which was a special treat!

The first room of the gallery featured the exhibition by artist John Folsom titled, Studies for a Quiet Coast. The artist traveled along the North Carolina coast (including Wrightsville Beach and Figure Eight Island) to photograph the images for this exhibition series.

John Folsom

John Folsom (b. 1967) is a multimedia artist born and raised in Paducah, Kentucky. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Cinema and Photography from Southern Illinois University. His work has been exhibited at the Gibbes Museum (Charleston, SC), Tennessee State Museum (Nashville, TN), Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN) and most recently at the Mobile Museum of Art (Mobile, Alabama). His work demonstrates the narrative potential of images through the use of digital photography, mixed media, and found materials. Folsom’s photographic paintings have been widely shown for the past 20 years and can be found in many collections worldwide.

Azure Endless 2019

Azure Deep 2019

Core II 2019

Moving onto the second room of the gallery, we were able to view works in the instantly recognizable style of artist Scott Upton. His exhibition is titled, Colour Field. We were both immediately drawn to the calming color palette of one painting in particular, Fresh Air.

Scott Upton

From an awareness of the surface, to the application of materials, my work is about color and light and their effect on our emotions. my inspiration comes from nature, whose sublime forms and colors and chaotic power shape the ever-changing landscape. For me, light is the unifying force, transforming everything it touches by banishing darkness and encouraging renewal. In my work I’ve always sought to suggest, in addition to the beauty, the feelings of hope and peace that light imparts.

The emotional impact of change, time, weather, and light, I employ a wide range of techniques. I lay down rich fields of color, enhanced by many layers of transparent glazes. To intensify the effects of depth and mystery, I may use a foundation of metal leaf or applied textures. After building up a surface I then scar it or even scrape it away only to cover it over again with a new layer. I like “closing away” lower layers, except for scattered spots of color–a reminder that more is happening in a painting than what is perceived on the surface. I hope this process creates for the viewer a calm moment in which to reflect on what, in a larger sense, has been hidden from view. – Scott Upton 2019

Fresh Air

Spring Rain

River Road 2019

It’s always a thrilling experience to view new work by Ruth Ava Lyons. We first fell in love with her butterfly series which featured both mixed media & resin on panel and mixed media on aluminum.

Her latest exhibition, Odyssey features brilliantly colored works including her Verses Series which features mixed media on aluminum. The exhibition also includes works with oil & gold leaf on canvas and mixed media on linen in custom-made acrylic boxes.

Ruth Ava Lyons

Ruth Ava Lyons was born in Cleveland, Ohio and holds degrees from Kent State University and Cranbrook Academy of Art. She is a Fulbright Fellowship Recipient and has taught at several colleges and universities. Ruth has received several grants, awards, and residencies and her work can be found in numerous private, corporate, institutional, and museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Hearst Corporation, Bank of America, New Orleans Museum of Art, National Museum for Women In the arts, SAS Institute, The Federal Reserve Bank, US Dept of Interior and others.

Ruth creates impressions of the natural world that explore concepts surrounding man’s negative impact on the environment and its possible restoration and renewal. The effects of global warming creating endangered ecosystems and environmental degradation inform the imagery she develops in several series.

These inspirational ecosystems include the Everglades, rainforest, amazon, wetlands and many scuba diving underwater locations. Her paintings are evidence of her personal search to comprehend universal themes of growth, resistance, and adaptation that she sees in nature, and in her own life. – Hidell Brooks