Join Carolina Galleries on Friday, April 3, 2009 from 5 to 8 pm for the opening of Craig Crawford: New Landscapes. This newest body of work of 10 oil paintings, will feature Coastal scenes as well as the landscape of the Sandhills of South Carolina.
Crawford and his wife Carol recently relocated their home and studio to 26 acres of the rural area between Columbia and Swansea, South Carolina. Their new environment, chosen so that Craig could be immersed in nature, features sandy soil, Reindeer moss on the ground, prickly pear cactus and long leaf pine. The Sandhills is actually a strip of ancient beach dunes that run North and South Carolina, dividing the Piedmont (or Pee Dee of South Carolina) from the Coastal Plain (or Lowcountry). Their new home and its surroundings have given Crawford new inspiration, immersing him in what “feels like a Inness or Daingerfield landscape.”
Craig Crawford first became interested in painting through his grandfather, himself a painter and an architect. He attended the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts at Furman University and graduated from the University of South Carolina. He then trained in the field of Painting Conservation with Charles Olin, former head of Painting Conservation at the Smithsonian Museum and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. During his eight year apprenticeship, Crawford spent endless hours studying paintings, particularly American Landscape Paintings and the French Barbizon School, and learning how they were made. He generally works from oil sketches done on location as well as digital images. Crawford paints in a straightforward traditional manner, and his paintings are infused with the light and shadows of the South. His paintings are often mistaken for 19th Century works, a strong tribute to his study and mastery of the craft.
The work will hang for the remainder of the month of April at Carolina Galleries, accompanied by the work of John Andrew Burmeister, Stephen Chesley, Julyan Davis, Gary Grier, Johnson Hagood, Chestee Harrington, Tom McNickle, Margaret M Peery, Mickey Williams, Evan Wilson, Stephen Scott Young and 19th and 20th Century Southern artwork, particularly the Charleston Renaissance. Please visit us at www.carolinagalleries.com or email info@carolinagalleries for more information.
