Southern Traditions
While many of us celebrate a plethora of life moments and holidays throughout the year, Wells Gallery out of South Carolina invites viewers to honor themes of tradition, “a custom passed down from generation to generation,” explains gallery director Emily Wagner. “We have cultural traditions and family traditions, and each contributes to a sense of practice and belonging.”
More specifically, Wells Gallery has more than 10 artists exploring themes around their upcoming show, Southern Traditions.
While the show focuses on traditions in the Southern U.S., it’s much more than that. It’s about a sense of home that anyone, from any location, can understand.
However, the South has much to offer in the way of tradition. “We have Sunday suppers created from recipe cards handed down through the years. We wear church hats and smile at strangers. We comb the beaches looking for seashells and soak in the sun while kayaking down the meandering estuaries,” says Wagner.
The gallery is located in the destination getaway of Kiawah Island, where there’s no shortage of natural beauty. “It doesn’t get more magical than Kiawah,” says artist and South Carolina resident Michael Reibel. “For this show, there are so many elements and inspirations to draw from—the beach, boardwalks across inland ponds, a drink on the porch overlooking the ocean golf course.”
Like many of the artists participating in the show, Reibel is often inspired by landscape, but has more recently been working on a series of bourbon and spirits still life
paintings, all centered on rich bourbon history and traditions, family history and heirlooms.
Reibel furthers, “In these pieces, all the elements of a successful painting are important as is the meaning of each object in relation to the whole and to the client or buyer. Often, the piece is telling a story of a tradition. I go one step further to mount a written ‘explanation’ on the back of the painting to explain why I picked the objects and their meaning to the piece.”
Watercolor artist Russell Jewell discusses that his take on Southern tradition is much like his connection to plein air painting, a calling to the outdoors. He poetically states, “It’s humid mornings, fog rising off rivers. It’s a chorus of cicadas singing under a full moon, but it’s also a Charleston or Savannah urban street scene in perspective with the tallest of steeples casting shadows upon unsuspecting passersby.”
Participating artist Karen Larson Turner also takes great interest in the Southern terrain. “As a painter, I am continually exploring the wide ranging moods of our coastal landscape and seeking to capture the awe that one experiences when immersed in nature,” says Turner. “I love exploring both the creeks and the open water…there are fleeting moments of both grandeur and tranquility, and in bringing these to life on canvas, I hope to preserve a memory of our beautiful coast.”
From still life bourbon scenes from Reibel, to Turner’s awe-inspiring nature depictions in oil and Jewell’s colorful watercolor scenes, the Southern Traditions show is sure to please. Wells Gallery invites viewers to enjoy the new works from April 10 to May 10, and challenges everyone to “find a piece that reflects a beloved tradition you hold dear.”
On April 5 the National Oil & Acrylic Painters’ Society will open its third annual Best of America Small Painting National Juried Exhibition featuring 125 paintings that measure 320 square inches or less. The exhibition will take place at McBride Gallery in Annapolis, Maryland, and kicks off with a reception and awards presentation from 1 to 4 p.m.
Included in the exhibition will be works by Patrick Seufert, Lindsay Goodwin, Rose Ann Bernatovich, Tom Altenburg, Jian Wu, Hans Guerin and Robert Akers, to name a few. The works represent a range in subject matter and styles, including everything from impressionistic oils to hyperrealist acrylic paintings.
Goodwin’s juried painting, Royal Colors of Les Trois Rois, depicts the interior of the historic hotel of the same name in Basel, Switzerland. The artist, who often does painting trips throughout Europe, is often recognized for her imagery that freezes moments in time. “Sometimes I will stumble upon some unexpected gem, but this location in particular is actually what drew me to the city of Basel in the first place,” she says. “It was the deep purples of the famous restaurant, Cheval Blanc, located in the hotel of Les Trois Rois that beckoned me. The deep color looked quite fitting for the royal title of the hotel (as Les Trois Rois means The Three Kings in French).”
Bernatovich was food shopping when she spotted the yellow irises that take center stage in her painting A Moment in Yellow. Returning home, she quickly set to
work on pulling complementary items for the still life. “Like puzzle pieces, the cookie jar, glass vase, flower and grapes clicked together. Originally, I was going to set up a grouping of irises, but the lone iris covering the cookie jar like an umbrella felt more powerful,” she says. “Also, I spent time looking for objects that were complementary like blues and violets, but the predominately yellow cookie jar is what tickled the right side of my brain. For me it was A Moment in Yellow and now I needed to go and check my yellow paints then think about dinner.”
In September 2019 Wu was invited to judge the NOAPS Best of America exhibition and hosted a workshop at Montgomery-Lee Fine Art in Park City, Utah. One of his portrait models became the subject of his painting selected for the show, aptly titled Mr. Patrick Dimoh. Explaining the piece, he says, “My first impression of Patrick is that he is a true gentleman. There is also something special in him that captured my curiosity. His steady posture and composed facial expression made me feel the urge to get to know him; not just his facial structure, feature proportion, but his personality, his emotion and his life story. I wanted to paint him the way I felt who he really is, not what he looks like.”
The Small Painting National Juried Exhibition will remain on view through May 3.