Painting in the Park: Featuring Curt Butler

Girl with Pink Pail by Curt Butler

Curt Butler represented by the Wells Gallery in Charleston, SC, considers himself an artist who teaches and shares his knowledge with other aspiring artists. He has taught at various art schools including Braitman Studio, Gaston Day School, Gaston College, and Gaston School of the Arts.

Curt conducted guild workshops throughout North Carolina where he resides that have been attended by both art students as well as professional artists. “I enjoy sharing my passion and knowledge with others to create a journey for someone else.” In 2002, he was honored with the Teacher of the Year Award at Gaston Day School for his outstanding teaching abilities.

Butler’s current work is a mixture of oil paint and encaustic painting techniques. These techniques have afforded him the opportunity to experiment within the realm of mixed media. His paintings are often layered with multiple colors combinations that enhance the surface, creating a tactile effect. The textures are rich with both brushstroke and palette knife work. His paintings seem to come together at a distance with his imagery, and yet, work on a purely abstract level as you approach them. Curt creates approximately 90 to 120 paintings each year.

Most of his work is based in landscape yet it is not rooted in a particular place, but instead speaks to a general mood or feeling he has experienced from being surrounded by nature. His larger work envelopes you and is a powerful statement on any wall. His style is current with contemporary thoughts about the flat abstract nature of the picture plane versus the illusion of space; and he skillfully balances both of these ideas into a singular piece. His bold loose strokes seem to melt off the painting and at times, drip, as if there is something more meaningful beyond the mere image.

Educated at Kent State University and The Savannah College of Art and Design, Curt Butler received both a Bachelor and Masters Degree in Fine Art.

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Painting in the Park: Featuring Laurie Meyer

Laurie Meyer has lived and painted in Charleston, SC, for over twenty-five years. Following careers in education and corporate sales, Laurie devoted her life to her first love – painting – in 1997. Life in Charleston has provided Laurie with countless subjects and rich inspiration for her award winning paintings. Her frequent travels have also given Laurie varied and interesting ideas for many of her works. She paints with rich color and broad “brushy” strokes and palette knife to express the unique and recognizable softness in her work.

How They Shine For You I by Laurie Meyer

Art has also played a role in community involvement for Laurie. She is the past president of the Mt. Pleasant Artists Guild, serving two terms. Laurie also served eight years on the Board of Directors of the Alzheimer’s Association and originated the Art of Alzheimer’s exhibit, now under the auspices of the Charleston Artist Guild. Laurie is past Program Director and past Director of Artistic Growth for the Charleston Artist Guild.  She is a member of the Oil Painters of America, Charleston Outdoor Painters Association, the SC Watercolor Association, and the Portrait Society of America.

Laurie resides on Daniel Island, SC with her creative and supportive husband.  Her three daughters, on their own or in college, are also creative with art and writing. “I am thankful to be blessed with the opportunity to do something I love. Painting has been part of me since I was a child and I still live for the artistic journey. I love rich color and textural strokes painted with gesture and spontaneity. I seek interesting designs with playful shadow structures in my street scenes and rich natural colors in my landscapes. Capturing light is a challenge and a thrill. Painting “en plein air,” nature’s studio, is a luxury and a great teacher, but weather and time constraints mean I also paint in the indoor studio. Either way, my challenge is to interpret what I see and express it in my unique style.”

She is represented by the Wells Gallery in Charleston, SC.

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Painting in the Park: Featuring Mark Bailey

Mark Bailey began drawing at an early age, having grown up in a family that has excelled at art for generations. He attended the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, where he completed his Bachelors of Fine Art in 2005. During his first painting class, the teacher noticed his talent and entered Mark’s first painting he’d ever completed into the prestigious Academy of Art Spring Show.

Rappelant Treclau by Mark Bailey

Inspired by color and light, Bailey deftly conveys the mood of his chosen subjects. Each painting is characterized by Bailey’s signature decisive brushstrokes, which describe light and form in a purely painterly manner. Round, juicy daubs of oil suggest the quality of each surface and form. Bailey’s command of composition and design unmistakably evoke the particulars of the scene, while simultaneously conveying an abstract mood. His cityscapes and urban interiors are often dramatically illuminated, capturing the glow and bustle of city life. His portraits convey the sense of a unique and fascinating story inherent in every person. Bailey paints his surroundings, the people he meets, and the simple things he finds around him.

He is represented by the Wells Gallery in Charleston, SC.

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Painting in the Park: Featuring George Pate

In the scenes that George Pate creates on canvas, one can feel the air, hear the stillness. One is drawn into the scenes of winding roads or trails, and the inclination is to linger there in a place of silent beauty.

Natural architectural forms fill George Pate’s work, reflecting the major preoccupations of his life. Graduated as an architect, Pate retains his love for dwellings and their shapes and the buildings of various cultures provide destinations in his works. Pate’s affinity for landscape stems from or perhaps, has motivated his many travels throughout the United States, Japan, Canada, Mexico and Europe.

Kiawah Stroll by George Pate

A resident of the Southeast since 1957, and Santa Fe, New Mexico since 1977, Pate finds ample subject matter in his imminently paintable landscape, filled with historical architecture and manifestations of distinctly different cultures. He works en plein air to render light, shade, and shadow with a strong design, vital color and thoughtful brush strokes. Pate evokes both realism and impressionism in his canvases and consistently displays his understanding of the invention and the presence of emotion.

George Pate was born and grew up in Michigan, spending summers on his uncle’s farm in Canada. His long journey as a painter began at age two when he received his first easel. While in the Air Force, he traveled to Japan and the pacific. A born teacher, he makes his knowledge of painting available to students at all levels and has led innumerable painting workshops.

Professional organizations have recognized Pate with shows, purchases, and awards, and his work is represented in both private and corporate collections. George is a member of the Salamagundi Club in New York, a Signature Member of Oil Painters of America (OPA), a member of Rocky Mountain Plein Air Painters (RMPAP), and Watercolor West.

George Pate fully inhabits each landscape he paints, extracting the essence that resides in the soul of the land, and releasing its poetry onto the surface of his canvas. He is represented by the Wells Gallery in Charleston, SC.

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Painting in the Park: Featuring Karen Larson Turner

For Karen Larson Turner, becoming an artist was the natural continuation of her favorite childhood pastime. Her earliest memories include hours spent on the floor with a sketchbook, producing countless drawings from her imagination. Later, she discovered the joy of drawing and painting from life.

A summer resident of Martha’s Vineyard, Karen’s first plein-air paintings were inspired by the island’s historic Victorian architecture, and by the age of fourteen she was taking commissions for house portraits. Her parents’ gift of a portable French easel furthered Karen’s enjoyment of outdoor painting. She learned to work on tourist – packed sidewalks, where knowing how to talk and paint at the same time became necessary; she also learned how to paint with one hand and brace the easel with the other on particularly windy days, and how to capture shadows quickly before the light changed.

Turner graduated from Calvin College in 1991 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. In 1992, her love for the craftsmanship of traditional oil painting inspired her to further study at the School of Representational Art in Chicago, Illinois. Modeled after the 19th century Atlier system, SORA provides mentorship of three master painters for students embarking upon rigorous study of classical technique. Turner completed four years of study with the school, honing a mastery of anatomy, the figure, portraiture, and the still life. Her final year was devoted to one major work – “Thirst”, a visual parable standing over six feet tall and involving five human figures.

After completing the program, Turner set to work as a full time painter, exhibiting in a variety of galleries and accepting private commissions. Although she divides most of her time between still lifes and landscape painting, she usually has something in progress involving the figure. These are long-term projects that involve hiring models and creating numerous sketches to find the best possible composition. Karen’s favorite approach to painting is to express ideas through metaphor and allegory. Still life work appeals to Karen’s love for detail and texture – thin, painstaking layers of paint reveal the reflective surface of silver or the ripeness of a peeled lemon. In contrast, landscape work brings a freedom and spontaneity to her brush as she seeks to capture the effects of light and shadow in painterly strokes.

“While in Charleston, I have rediscovered the joys of these subjects in my oils, and I have remembered the reasons I first began to paint. There are countless images before us wherever we go: the curve of a road, the fleeting shadows on a porch, a formation of clouds. Those scenes which cause us to stop and stare, if only for a moment, those things that inspire awe or contemplation…grand or humble…these are worthy to be remembered.”

Karen is represented by the Wells Gallery located at 125 Meeting Street in downtown Charleston, SC.

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Wells Gallery & Social: Partners for the 2012 Palette and Palate Stroll

As you visit The Wells Gallery in historic downtown Charleston, you are greeted by a custom mahogany façade that leads into a space which features vaulted ceilings, custom oak floors and 2,000 square feet of inviting space to view an outstanding selection of fine artwork. The 130 year old building also features an interesting installation of glass flooring to view the original cistern which was discovered beneath the building during renovations. To compliment the beautiful exterior, the Wells Gallery features the work of several in-house artists with pieces ranging from paintings, hand-blown glass sculptures, hand-crafted glass jewelry, and much more.

Anona Maxima Large by Mark Catesby

For this year’s stroll, Wells Gallery will be featuring limited edition lithographs of Mark Catesby’s original watercolors to celebrate the 300th Anniversary of Catesby’s voyage fromEngland to America to document the flora and fauna of the South East. Catesby was an early naturalist from London who made two trips to America, once in 1712 and then later in 1722. While in America, he traveled extensively throughout the Lowcountry, including Kiawah Island and remained for seven years collecting botanical specimens and sketching the wildlife.

Catesby’s “The Natural History of Carolinas, Florida and The Bahamas Islands” was the first natural history of American flora and fauna. First issued between 1731 and 1743, this work would eventually include 220 prints, which for the first time systematically illustrated American birds, animals and plants. It was not only the first fully-illustrated natural history of North America but also a major contribution to both art and science.  Catesby is considered one of the greatest

Buffleheaded Duck Large by Mark Catesby

naturalists of the eighteenth-century. The Wells Gallery has a great opportunity to offer a diverse selection of the reproductions from Catesby’s original work. These unique prints were created by Alecto Historical Editions which was granted printing rights by The Queen in 1996. The editions are limited to fifty complete sets, numbered 1/50 through 50/50, only 10 in each set were released for public sale.

The Wells Gallery is pleased to welcome  Social Restaurant and Wine Bar for this year’s Palette and Palate Stroll where their one-of-a-kind wines and culinary creations from chef Jesse Sutton are sure to compliment Catesby’s unique lithographs.

Social Restaurant + Wine Bar opened on February 13, 2007, and since then has received much acclaim and is noted as one of Charleston’s most exciting restaurants, offering the city’s largest selection of wines by the glass. Social is housed in a nineteenth century warehouse and features an exquisite four-thousand bottle display cellar, giving it a chic but casual atmosphere. For Chef Jesse Sutton, the finishing touch on a dish isn’t the sauce or the sides, but the perfect pairing with a glass of wine.  Driven by cultural context, Sutton looks to the traditional ingredients and natural resources of a region to inspire what he creates on the plate.

Chef Jesse Sutton

Born in Carrboro, NC, Sutton grew up in Urbana, IL, and found his way into the kitchen by the age of 18 where his culinary journey began. Sutton enrolled at Kendall College where he received his AAS. His enthusiasm and willingness to learn quickly found him in an apprenticeship with the noted avant-garde chef, Grant Achatz at Trio restaurant. This experience made Sutton realize that the culinary world was ever-evolving and that it was a direction that he wanted to pursue as a career. In 2011, after five years at the Woodlands, South Carolina’s only 5-star, 5-diamond restaurant, Sutton took on the role of Executive-Chef at Social Restaurant + Wine Bar. At Social, in collaboration with owner and Sommelier Brad Ball, Sutton has found a home where wine plays a central part in each dish he creates. Drawing from the old-world wine regions of the world, Sutton is able to take diners on a culinary journey and create simple, elegant stories from around the world using only a wine glass, a plate and a vision.

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Plein Air Painters of the Southeast Come to Charleston. Opening Reception June 1!

Southern Oaks, Chris Groves, 11×14, Oil on Linen

The southeastern United States, with its wealth of natural beauty and the architectural elegance of its historic towns and cities, provides ample inspiration for artists.  Founded in 2001, the Plein Air Painters of the Southeast (PAP-SE) is an organization of professional painters bound by a common passion to promote the traditional methods of painting en plein air while capturing the varied scenery of this region.

In 2001,the Plein Air Painters of the Southeast held its first exhibition at the Wells Gallery in Charleston, South Carolina.  This year, the group returns to Charleston to exhibit work in four downtown galleries:  Horton Hayes Fine Art, Hagan Fine Art Gallery and Studio, Galerie on Broad and Smith Killian Fine Art.  Each gallery is sponsoring eight individual artists.  For a roster of participating artists and their sponsor galleries, please click here.

The exhibition will be shown through June 22nd with opening receptions in each gallery on Friday June 1st from 5 to 8pm.  Prior to the opening, from May 30th to June 1st, PAP-SE artists can be seen painting in the vicinity of their sponsor galleries.  Please come by and meet the artists as they paint!

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Wells Gallery featuring George Pate for Art Walk, May 4

Stardust by George Pate

Don’t forget to stop by the Wells Gallery located at 125 Meeting Street tomorrow night, May 4, from 5-8pm. The gallery will be featuring new works by George Pate.

A resident of the Southeast since 1957, and Santa Fe, New Mexico since 1977, Pate finds ample subject matter in his imminently paintable landscape, filled with historical architecture and manifestations of distinctly different cultures. He works en plein air to render light, shade, and shadow with a strong design, vital color and thoughtful brush strokes. Pate evokes both realism and impressionism in his canvases and consistently displays his understanding of the invention and the presence of emotion.

Check out George painting live at The Sanctuary on Kiawah:

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“La Nuit” Featuring Karen Larson Turner Works Opens at the Wells Gallery November 5

On Friday, November 5^th, Karen Larson Turner will unveil ‘La Nuit’ at the Wells Gallery. The opening reception will take place from 5:30pm – 8:30pm and will coincide with the 12^th annual Charleston Fine Art Dealers Association’s (CFADA) Charleston Fine Art Weekend.

As the sun sinks low on the horizon, there is a sequence of light that transforms the day to night. In her upcoming show, Turner captures the fleeting cycle of fading sunlight as well as the moon’s illumination on a clear night. Although ‘La Nuit’ focuses solely on evening and night scenes, a first for Turner, it is a diverse exhibition of both natural marshscapes and quiet Charleston evenings. In the paintings of downtown Charleston, she also explores the warm glow cast from streetlights and from within homes.

During summers in Martha’s Vineyard as a teenager, Turner began painting in plein air, learning how to capture shadows quickly before the light changed. The paintings in ‘La Nuit’ display her mastery of this technique in the varying hues of fading sunlight and the long shadows cast by the sinking sun.

The “La Nuit” exhibit will coincide with the CFADA Fine Art Annual, featuring several gallery openings, lectures, plein air paintings by Charleston most distinguished artists and an auctions of works on Saturday evening. To find out more about the events through the week, visit www.CFADA.com. If you would like more details of works available at the art auctions, visit www.charlestonartauction.com, or call us at (843) 853.3233 to request a catalog of works.

The Wells Gallery has been honored to feature Karen Larson Turner for the past tens years. With each painting, she has shared with her audience those wonderful nuances of the Lowcountry. In November of 2003, she was commissioned by The Sanctuary Hotel to paint four large scale murals to adorn their hotel. Through the years, Karen Larson Turner’s paintings have expressed the majesty of the Lowcountry and we are very excited for the upcoming body of work.

The exhibit will be on view from Friday November 5^th until November 19^th 2010.  Digital images of new paintings are available upon request.  Contact Keli Tolley (843) 853.3233

Located at 125 Meeting Street next to the Gibbes Museum of Art in historic downtown Charleston, South Carolina, the Wells Gallery features fine regional art from a diversity of perspectives in various mediums, including original painting, bronze sculpture and hand-blown glass. A member of the Charleston Fine Art Dealers’ Association and the French Quarter Gallery Association, the Wells Gallery is open Monday  – Saturday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. An additional gallery is located at The Sanctuary at Kiawah Island Golf Resort on Kiawah Island.  To view work and learn more about the artists, please contact the Wells Gallery at 843-853-3233 or visit www.wellsgallery.com , or visit our blog at www.wellsgallery.blogspot.com

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“Elements & Atmosphere” Features Wendy Whitson and Kevin LePrince at the Wells Gallery, October 1

A Little Twisted by Kevin LePrince

This October, the Wells Gallery located in downtown Charleston, SC, will present a show titled Elements & Atmosphere. The show immortalizes the Carolinas in rich oil paint, the most forgiving and often frustrating medium. Both feature artists, Wendy Whitson and Kevin LePrince, tell a different story of the same land, their respective perspectives emerging in style, process, palette and detail. The exclusive Collectors Preview will take place on Sept. 30. Artist reception open to public will be on Friday, October 1 from 5 to 8 p.m. at 125 Meeting Street.

Whitson, an Asheville-based artist, has a background in graphic design and photography, thus her painting process is no surprise. All of her works begin with a grid in the under-painting to instill the structure she feels is evident in nature. However, after securing the placement of her subjects with the grid, she then builds layers of paint, even occasionally using natural elements like mica, to add further texture and natural organic shapes in her work. Embracing an earth toned palette, Wendy’s paintings bring a new aspect to what the Wells Gallery typically offers, hinting at the seasonal changes within the North Carolina landscapes.

Harvest Moon by Wendy Whitson

A Charleston native, LePrince grew up surrounded by Lowcountry landscapes. Yet this artist began his career working as the Vice President of investments at a well-known national bank before returning to his roots and honing his painting skills; LePrince’s ancestors have works hanging in the Louvre and Getty museums. When he puts brush to canvas, LePrince exhibits his inherited talents, creating compositions that please the eye as well as beg a laugh.

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