Grab your hat, sunscreen and walking shoes for a walk through the Museum Park! The winning artists for this year’s Park Pictures contest will each co-lead a tour of the Park with a docent. See the Park through the eyes of artists as you explore the connection between nature and art. 

Cindy Kohnen from Meredith College will be on June 23. Sydney Cobb from Alamance Community College will lead on July 28, and Isaiah Johnson from St. Augustine’s College will lead on August 25. 

The tour is free, but space is limited and preregistration is required. Click here to register!

New Park, Pictures Submission

Gina Savage

The Wonders of the Grand Canyon

North Carolina Central University

Date: February 1, 2012

Artist statement about the piece: I was on vacation when this picture was taken. It was my first time going to the Grand Canyon and hopefully not the last. The location for the Grand Crayon is in Arizona on the Northwest corner, near Utah and Nevada’s borders. The Grand Canyon is known for being one the Seven Natural Wonders of the World.  The landscape is beautiful. You can see the different shades of colors such as, red and grey. You can see the layers, textures, and details of the Canyon. It was truly a great experience being there.

Short bio about the artist: Gina Savage is a senior at North Carolina Central University, studying Visual Communication. Gina is a very hard worker and wants to become a graphic designer. She enjoys playing video games, drawing, and making graphic designs during her free time. Gina will be graduating from NCCU in May 2012.

Josiah King

Mount Olive College

Provision 

2010

Artist statement:

I painted this piece as I was contemplating the subject of provision.  I found this best expressed in the environment symbols of wheat and desert; the wheat speaking of the things that we all need, and the desert addressing the lack thereof.  I am really trying to allow the viewer to see that in the midst of their seemingly barren environment, there is still provision.  

Short bio about the artist:

Josiah King is a senior Fine Arts major at Mount Olive College, in Mount Olive, North Carolina.  He enjoys working with acrylic and various drawing media, and often creates pieces that relate to the spiritual condition.  In addition to being educated at Mount Olive College, Josiah also teaches art at a private arts studio.

Jack Arthur Wood Jr.

Guilford College

Joe and the Devil Together

Saturday February Fourth, 2012

My art practice has been shaken thoroughly by my academic experience as a double major in Religious Studies and Art here at Guilford. In endeavoring to participate in Art Thesis at Guilford I had to discontinue my studies of religion. In reaction to this unfortunate, but necessary decision, the subjects of my thesis are religiously concerned. I have found that my obsessive line making and subjects translate well into the medium of large format linocut prints. I would also assert that my methodology of rendering lends itself somewhat to folk art traditions in that I have developed my own language of conveyance through obsessive line and late night mania. I never gained much through the more academic suggestions of rendering. Formulaic procedure is perhaps the antithesis of how I go about making. Although my art is concerned largely with the macabre reification of previously existing depictions of the divine, the process of appropriation is simultaneously, and perhaps subconsciously, affected by what I conceive of as the organic infinity of the natural world. I perceive no dichotomy between the creations of man and what is popularly described as natural or organic. My perception of the nature of this world is where from the mania of my art finds genesis. I am quite literally obsessed with pine cones and more importantly the graphic intensity their form proclaims. The composition I have created for the Billboard is a mash up, if you will, of two of my prints which become the marriage of organic mania and man’s being submerged in it. If I draw inspiration from El Anatsui and his use of found objects it is in my process and vocabulary of drawing. The devices I use in my drawing are very often spontaneously or accidentally discovered. I would hope that my work would find a home among the intensities of the forest.

Bio:

I was told early on that I was not allowed to participate in the academic world of art because I could not render objectively. Instead, I developed my own styles of rendering through the physical nature of different art media. I borrowed the vocabulary of Art Nouveau lithographers that I experienced in my father’s gallery and learned how to make stencils on my own. Through the layering of stencils I found that chiaroscuro could be achieved. This is how I first began to understand light. I struggled with drawing in college and found that greater success was achieved through deviance. Over the past two years I have come into an aesthetic and methodology of making where I feel at home. I concern myself presently with honing this aesthetic through meditative mania.

New Park Pictures Submission

Sydney Cobb
Alamance Community College
Fireflies, 2011

Statement: This piece portrays a childhood memory of catching mystical fireflies in one of my grandma’s mason jars. I always loved opening the jar and watching them fly away.

The inspiration I drew from El Anatsui’s artwork is the free flowing nature he gives each piece. My piece is a free flowing and natural piece much like his artwork.

Bio: I am gradually coming close to graduating with an associate degree in Graphic Design and Advertising. Art has been a main interest and subject in my life since before I can remember. My father always pushed me to peruse art and try to send myself over the edge of comfort I was at. My main art inspirations are nature, music, and poetry.