“Green Hill’s Facing South: Portraits by North Carolina Artists
02-23-2008
Greensboro, NC, February 13, 2008: Green Hill’s spring exhibition Facing South: Portraits by North Carolina Artists will celebrate the fine art of portraiture and present more than 20 portrait artists from across the state. Portraits in the mediums of paint, sculpture, photography, textiles, clay, collage, and more will be on display. Visitors are invited to contribute to the exhibition by adding a 2-dimensional portrait, 5” by 5”, unframed, to a collective portrait wall. In conjunction with the bicentennial celebration of the City of Greensboro, the centerpiece of the exhibition will be devoted to Greensboro’s residents, past, present, known, and unknown. The exhibition will be on display from Saturday, March 22, to Sunday, June 1. The opening reception will be held Friday, April 4, 5:30 to 7:30 pm and is free and open to the public; light refreshments will be served.
The exhibition is sponsored by Lincoln Financial Group, Glen Raven, Inc., Greensboro Bicentennial Commission, Blue Bell Foundation, Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, International Textile Group, and Marion Stedman Covington Foundation.
One of the exhibition’s featured artists Beverly McIver, a Greensboro native and painter nationally acclaimed for her portraiture work, has a long history with the Green Hill Center. McIver’s work debuted in the gallery in 1996 and exhibited again in 1997, ’99, 2000, and 2001. McIver grew up in Greensboro and often used her childhood experiences as the source of her work. For example, her experience as a member of Grimsley High School’s Clown Club as the inspiration for some of her most acclaimed work. McIver is currently a professor of art at North Carolina Central University. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, among them a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation Fellowship, and the Louise Comfort Tiffany Award. Articles on her work have been published in Art In America and Art News. Her paintings are in corporate and museum collections around the country including the permanent collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art; she is represented by the Tyndall Gallery in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
The participating artists are James Barnhill, Thor Bueno, Keith Buckner, Katie Claiborne, Ann Conner, Pamela W. Crist, Drew Deane, Carolyn DeMeritt, Artie Dixon, Shannon Duffy, Rebecca Fagg, Diane Feissel, Richard Fennell, Tim Ford, Brownie Harris, Robert Igoe, Fritz Janschka, Eric Lawing, Lewis St. Louis, Beverly McIver, Trena McNabb, Phil Moody, Leo Morrissey, Vita Plume, Shaun Richards, Linda Foard Roberts, Anne Kesler Shields, David M. Spear, Louis St. Lewis, Tom Thoune, Caroline Vaughan, Betty Watson.
Another component of the exhibition will be a brief documentary film of Greensboro by H. Lee Waters. The film, made in Greensboro in 1939, documents the city’s mill workers and their lives. The film is one of the hundreds of films of small town life that Waters made all over the South between 1936 and 1942. Recently, the films were discovered and sent to Color Lab at Duke University for restoration, where many of the films were restored to pristine condition. This 20 minute silent film will be screened regularly during the exhibition.
As a response to the Waters film, Meredith Gillespie, Lee Narby, and Michael Frierson will collaborate on a film installation tentatively titled Viewing Glass that will capture the cinematic rhythm of Greensboro’s past and present. In film, a “viewing glass” is a filter through which a cinematographer views a scene to identify contrast range. The filmmakers’ project holds up such a glass to the community using archival shots from the Waters film and footage from the present day. Gillespie and Narby are students in the Broadcasting Cinema program at UNCG where Frierson is an associate professor.
Viewing Glass will premiere Wednesday, May 14, at 6:00 pm in the Green Hill Center Gallery. The showing is free and open to the public. The film will be screened regularly for the remainder of the exhibition.
In addition, part of the exhibition will be dedicated to portraits provided by visitors through the creation of a Community Portrait Wall. Space on the Community Portrait Wall will be available for patrons to hang an unframed, 2 dimensional, 5” by 5” portrait of their choice. Space is limited, so those interested in submitting a portrait should contact the Green Hill Center. These portraits will be on display for the duration of the exhibition. Special thanks to Frame Warehouse for donating materials to make the Community Portrait Wall possible.
Additional programming during the exhibition includes acclaimed silhouette artist Kathie Housel Bogue who will be cutting silhouettes free-hand during the exhibition opening Friday, April 4. Reservations are required, and appointments are available from 3:30 to 7:30 pm on April 4. Contact the Green Hill
[Back to Press Releases Main]
