Exhibit focuses on ‘New Beginnings’ of three local artists
Local artists Richard Sutton, Georgia Hubnik and Danny Helms all have work displayed at the exhibit titled New Beginnings now at the John F. Moss Library at Texas A&M University-Texarkana.
The exhibit title refers to how all three artists found new beginnings with their artwork.
Richard Sutton Sutton graduated from the Memphis Academy of Art with a degree in fine arts and a minor in printmaking. Works included in New Beginnings come from both his Living Color series and his Lines series.
Sutton’s part of the exhibit includes a series of portraits of children. “I like the portraits because I love to study the faces,” Sutton said. By the time he gets through with a portrait, he says he feels like he knows his subject.
“I’m just copying photos, which is just a craft really more than an art,” he said. Still, he injects his own artistic interpretation on these commission works. What does he want to capture in a portrait?
“Of course the essence of the person in the moment,” Sutton said. He wants them to look good but not romanticized. “I want them to look like who they are.”
Color is an essential consideration when he approaches his art, whether it’s a realistic portrait or his abstract works, which he describes as an outlet. “That’s the technical side of painting that I enjoy. That’s what I learned in art school is how to theorize color and look at all the different aspects of it,” Sutton said. He uses glazes and varnishes.
Georgia Hubnik Hubnik’s works are part of her
Reflections series inspired by her trip to Cozumel, Mexico. She traveled there on a cruise and writes that it inspired her to reflect on God’s wonders. She writes in her statement about the exhibit, “The artist’s simplistic form encourages the viewer to reflect and meditate on their own experiences.”
“It was simply my reflection after a trip to Mexico,” said Hubnik, who recently opened a gallery on East Broad Street called Downtown Gallery. “It’s about just taking the time to reflect what is around you—one of those count your blessings.”
Speaking of those blessings, she points to her painting of a hibiscus. “Just the simplicity and the complexity of the beauty, which is all around us,” Hubnik says.
She found inspiration, too, in a Mayan temple she photographed and the people who, year after year, walked to that temple to praise God. “It’s really inspiring to know something has lasted that long, and I think it puts a life in perspective a little bit.”
Another photo of a Mayan structure depicts columns, which hold a deeper significance to her about enduring tough times. “It’s all real spiritual to me,” Hubnik said.
Also inspiring to her is the beach, which represents harmony. “In our life, nature, everything’s in harmony,” she said, standing in front of her painting of a beach, waves rolling in. Her paintings in this exhibit employ acrylics.
“I feel peaceful when I’m around water. It’s just something that really inspires me,” Hubnik said.
Danny Helms Texarkana resident Helms graduated from Arkansas State University with an art degree. He’s refocused on painting and visual work since his retirement.
“I paint for the enjoyment and excitement of using God’s gift he gave me by taking a blank canvas or sheet of paper and allowing strokes, images and colors to come together,” Helms wrote in his artist’s statement. “The patterns, shapes, lights and darks turn out to be either realistic, impressionistic or contemporary depending upon the subject, mood, idea or inspiration at the moment.”
Helms’ works in this exhibit include two different sets of paintings, one titled Thyatira Color Collection, which depicts cloth folds and texture.
Of these works, he writes, “Just as the story of Lydia has continued to inspire, motivate and captivate, these pieces continue to bring out different emotions with each viewing.”
Helms’ Gulf Coast oil series focuses on Bayou La Batre in Alabama, a community damaged by Hurricane Katrina and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He sees perseverance in these people, despite hardships.
“The people that lost homes, lives and livelihood are mostly forgotten still today,” he writes. “Though some shrimping, fishing, crabbing has returned, most are still struggling to make a living.”
A reception for the artists will take place from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, June 27.