By Toni Magee/reporter
“Painterly representation to raw expressionism” defines the theme of a SE Campus art exhibit featuring six women artists.
The Figurative Impulse is the first exhibit instructional assistant Devon Nowlin has curated since she began working on SE in fall 2006.
The show includes six women whom Nowlin picked specifically for this show.
“ Except for Kathleen Rivers, I have met these artists and have seen their work over the past year at different galleries in the area,” she said. “They all appealed to me because I am a figurative artist myself, so I am naturally attracted to figurative paintings.”
One of the artists featured is Harmony Padgett, a 31-year-old Arlington resident with a bachelor’s degree in painting from the University of Kansas.
Padgett has been painting for 10 years and said just trying new things inspires her. To her, painting is a sense of expression.
Padgett offered advice to painters just starting out.
“ Don’t be afraid to try something new,” she said.
Padgett’s work deals mostly with abstractions of the human body.
“ She paints on panels of wood that have been scraped and gouged by wood-working tools in a relief technique, and the paint is applied in thin layers, almost like a wood stain,” Nowlin said. “The grain and color of the wood comes through the paint so the surface texture adds to the painted image of the figures.”
The other artists featured in the show include Sara Troutman, Elizabeth Newman, Rivers, Penelope Bisbee and Jill Foley. Their works include archetypal figures and sometimes biblical themes and scenes. Visitors can see provocative figures in spaces that are cluttered with objects, textures of different materials to simulate ground surfaces (dirt, grass, rock) and paintings of realistic and dreamy abstractions.
The Figurative Impulse runs through Nov. 2 in Art Corridor II on SE Campus. Hours are 8 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday and 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday-Saturday.
