Line Shape Color: Patricia Underwood and Kevin H. Adams
opens at Middle Street Gallery in Sperryville, VA from August 31 to September 30
Opening Reception: September 15, 2:00 to 5:00 PM
Two powerful and contrasting yet complementary interpretations of color and form are presented in this exhibit of recent works by Patricia Underwood and Kevin Adams.
Patricia Underwood is a Washington-based artist with a studio in Castleton, VA who employs printmaking, novel materials and her own language of symbols to create evocative, complex and richly textured mixed media works. This show combines two of her unique visual calligraphies – one inspired by a visual language of music, and the other sourced from pictographs, found in a cave in Aruba, of the near-extinct Arawak tribe. Ms. Underwood has executed these in pieces that combine linocuts with mixed media and encaustic on fine wood veneers, and in a series of monoprints called “Etudes”. The Etudes series was created as part of “In Unison: 20 Washington, D.C. Artists” organized by the Kreeger Museum and Millennium Art Salon and printed at George Mason University’s print studio, that is returning from New York’s Wilmer Jennings Gallery to be shown concurrently at the adjacent Confluent Gallery in Sperryville.
Kevin H. Adams is a print-maker and painter who lives and works in “Little” Washington, VA. His current work, principally executed in oils, focuses on the effects of sunlight, with an emphasis on color and form, to convey an intimate knowledge of the places and scenes he sees around him, with a particular focus on the rich visual landscapes in his beloved Rappahannock County. Employing evocative color and bold forms, Mr. Adams draws the viewer to experience a specific moment in a specific place with him, to see what he saw, to know how it moved him. Mr. Adams’ works have been commissioned by the U.S. Department of the Interior to commemorate the anniversaries of several National Parks, including recently Shenandoah National Park, and the U.S. Department of State has included his paintings in exhibitions at several American embassies around the world.
About Patricia Underwood
Patricia Underwood obtained her BFA from Miami University, Oxford, OH, and her MFA from Washington University, St Louis, MO. She has taught drawing, printmaking, visual foundations and color theory at several schools, including the Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore, MD. After studying the Japanese language, she began to interpret music as a universal language through her own visual calligraphy, which finds its way into almost all of her work.
The content of Ms. Underwood’s art encompasses nature, human spirituality and healing. Bodies of work have included a series of symbolic lullabies, pictographic portraits and “Bimbos and Goddesses”, a series of etchings pairing Neolithic and contemporary images of women, “Healing Shields”, a series of icons representing social issues in need of curing and “Nine Children” addressing the price going to war exacts upon innocent victims. The Arawak series studies the only visual traces left of the near extinct America tribe for which it is named.“Etudes”, her newest body of work incorporates her own visual calligraphy with classical violin scores.
She is represented by the Middle St. Gallery, Sperryville, VA and Parish Gallery in Washington, DC. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, at venues including the Corcoran Museum and two solo shows in Warsaw in 2007. Her work is included in numerous private collections as well as the Artist's Book Collection of the National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington, DC. and several other institutional collections.
For more info see: http://www.punderwood.com/ http://www.parishgallery.com/
About Kevin H. Adams
Having studied in Minneapolis and at the Institute for American Universities in Southern France, Kevin was singled out for his artistic ability while serving as an officer in the United States Marine Corps and was assigned as a Combat Artist. In 1992 and 1994, the U.S. Department of the Interior commissioned two significant collections of work from Kevin, who painted the backcountry and remote areas of the Grand Canyons National Park and Glacier National Park for their respective 75th and 85th anniversaries. In connection with Shenandoah National Park’s recent 75th Anniversary, the park’s foundation commissioned a limited edition giclée print of Kevin’s iconic “Old Rag and the Piedmont.” And many of his paintings have been chosen by the U.S. Department of State to hang in American embassies around the world through its “Art In Embassies Program."
Kevin currently lives and has a studio in Little Washington, Virginia, where he and his partner also own and run the Gay Street Inn. In “Big Washington,” D.C., Kevin is represented by Gallery Plan B, and in New York by MDH Fine Arts.
www.mdhfinearts.com
Middle Street Gallery
3 River Lane
Sperryville, VA 22740
540-987-9330
Gallery Hours: Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Contact:
Patricia Underwood punderwd@rcn.com ; 301.580.1377
Kevin Adams kevin@gaystreetinn.com ; 540-522-9688
Alexia Scott ajsscott@aol.com (gallery contact)
