THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 18, 1994 TAG: 9412160098
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: TERESA ANNAS
LENGTH: Long : 136 lines
DON LEWIS JR. grew up around significant early 20th century American paintings. His father, Don Lewis Sr., owned Auslew Gallery and trained his son's eye and hand from the beginning.
By age 14, Don Jr. was learning the nerve-testing, painstaking art of conservation - cleaning, repairing and touching up fine old paintings. And he began to paint for himself, too.
His eye was developed over time, largely from direct experience with the art he handled. But he studied, too, becoming a Ph.D candidate in art history at the University of Virginia. He considers his friend the painter Charles Sibley a great influence, too.
Decades later, his father has retired, and Lewis has taken over gallery operations at the Sajo Manor estate in Virginia Beach. But he's also been painting more than ever.
For 10 years now, Lewis has devoted quality time to painting Virginia and North Carolina Outer Banks scenes. Twenty-eight of these paintings, many of them dated 1994, are on view through Dec. 31 at The Art Works in Norfolk.
It seems that Lewis is a painter who has been running a business. Judging from the caliber of work, art is no secondary hobby.
His oils on canvas are marked by quiet, reflective mood; strong compositional structure; and a subtle, naturalistic palette. Like any landscape painter, he puts great energy into lyrical and faithful descriptions of atmosphere and objects in nature - and is frequently quite successful to that end.
His subjects have grown more expansive and ambitious. In his inviting but somewhat solemn images of Outer Banks cottages, a viewer can recognize Lewis' study of Edward Hopper. Several of his paintings present broad mountain vistas, recalling the sincere excitement 19th century landscape painters conveyed in their work as they explored the Old West.
The Art Works, at 321 W. Bute St., Norfolk, is open weekdays from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Saturdays till 3 p.m. Free. 625-3004. INSPIRED VISTAS
It has only been a few years since Pat Kirby gave up weaving splendid, landscape-inspired tapestries in favor of painting.
The threads of her earlier medium remain evident in a recent collection of her paintings and drawings, on view through Dec. 31 at Art America, a downtown Norfolk gallery.
Her emphasis on line and a somewhat flattened composition recall the structure of her tapestries. One new work in particular, ``Near Manteo,'' makes effective use of a nervously energetic stroke used repetitively to convey foreground clusters of wild grasses. That stroke is reminiscent of yarn; Kirby must've spent thousands of hours looking at stray stretches of it while at work on her tapestries.
Fiber references aside, Kirby is absolutely blossoming as a painter. Each new batch of work gets bolder, often larger, and seems more confident than the last.
Kirby is a serious gardener who loves the outdoors. Her keen eye in such settings pays off in her work. Much of the appeal in her work lies in her sensitive visual observations.
Her ``Companions'' is an image of fields separated by an irregular stretch of scruffy shrubs. Kirby sees individual character in each shrub and suggests relationships among the landscape elements.
That sort of equivalency - an inanimate setting suggesting human traits and relationships - is an underlying reason why people enjoy looking at landscape.
Kirby makes sophisticated use of underpainting and linear design, especially noticeable in her tree trunks. Often, she sends the viewer's eye zigzagging through her images, along lush golden fields and past pleasingly various arrangements of trees and plants.
In ``View of Queen's Creek,'' Kirby splits the eye into a Y path. She causes patrons to broaden their visual embrace of the scene - to raise their sights to the heavens, where clusters of white clouds mirror the marsh grass below.
Art America, 141 Granby St., is open 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. weekdays and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Free. 625-1888. NUDES AND TUTUS
More than 30 of the best-known local artists are included in a holiday exhibition that opened last week at The Hermitage Foundation Museum.
In the upstairs gallery is an entertaining mix of sometimes smaller, more affordable works by these artists. Certainly, the show was positioned this way in hopes of gift sales.
Ray Hershberger's oil paintings of sensuous, reclining female nudes are very well-handled. Bill Wagner's landscape drawings are exceptionally delicate and moody.
With works in pencil and acrylic like ``Feedin' Time,'' depicting a homely stretch of fast-food eateries, Dave Bruner has arrived at his own style of realism - photorealistic, but with the lens slightly unfocused to diffuse details.
In looking at the folk-styled, mischievous watercolors by ``Jim Bob,'' don't be fooled by the moniker. It's the alias for Robert Burnell, long known in these parts for his naturalistic renderings of regional water scenes and landscapes. Burnell hasn't given up his mainstay. He's just having fun being someone else for a change.
The lush strokes and gutsy palette of Helen Pine's ``Sedona'' suggests the West's rugged allure. In Jeanne Goodman's colored pencil drawing ``The Ballet Hall,'' light streams into a dance rehearsal room where young women in pink tutus are artfully arranged in a geometrically balanced composition.
Using felt tip pen and watercolor, Jerry Kellems makes drawings with an astoundingly unique, unpirated style. He shows eccentric, stylized versions of the still life and garden scene that, in the '60s and '70s, might have placed him in the company of Chicago Imagists like Ed Paschke.
``A Christmas Exhibition'' continues through Feb. 5 at the museum, 7637 North Shore Road, Norfolk. Open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. Free. 423-2052. WOMEN IN COLOR
Exuberant, compelling images and forms by area African-American women artists are on view at Alive Art Studio in downtown Norfolk.
It is always a pleasure to encounter one of the clay figures of nationally known sculptor Persis Jennings. Whether a woman seated in a garden or a man standing with his arms intertwined comfortably behind his back, each emanates a sense of inner peace from within - rather than from outside forces.
The loose and painterly works of Maizelle Brown, the show's organizer, are marked by a festive palette and stylized figures with masklike faces. Cynthia Potter, in her ``After a Bath'' painting, also shows strength as a colorist.
Christal Norris' affectionate portraits of men of color with their children are sensitive, earthy realistic renderings.
In Betty Jo Woodhouse's ``Unity Among Women,'' with its lavish, collaged surface, what women can give to each other and to the world is the point. Alluding to Egyptian hieroglyphic figures, each of these women in profile presents a decorative vessel, their offering.
The show, titled ``In the Company of My Sisters,'' was sponsored by Southeastern Virginia Arts Association. It continues through Dec. 31 at 737 Granby St. Open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Free. 622-7645. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
``Cottages Nags Head, North Carolina'' by Don Lewis Jr. is on
exhibit at The Art Works in Norfolk.
``August Lagoon'' is among paintings by Pat Kirby being shown at Art
America gallery in Norfolk.
by CNB