
DATE: Sunday, September 14, 1997            TAG: 9709120260

SECTION: CAROLINA COAST          PAGE: 24   EDITION: FINAL 

COLUMN: ART BEAT 

                                            LENGTH:   72 lines

RAUCOUS COLORS SET OFF SERENE SCENES MARCIA CLINE'S PAINTINGS DEPICT OUTER BANKS LIFE

LIKE SUCKING on a handful of Skittles - grape, lemon, cherry, lime and orange - viewing Nags Head artist Marcia Cline's paintings offers a burst of island flavor and color.

Cline's work is on display through Sept. 30 at The Frame Shop in downtown Manteo. The tiny gallery practically emits a phosphorous glow jammed with about 20 color-saturated canvases - so large, there isn't enough wall space to hang them.

Cline's art focuses on everyday Outer Banks life: surfers heading into the sea; cars, abandoned in search of big waves, lining a sandy street; verdant roadsides hugging seductive, curving blacktop; marshes filled with a symphony of nodding marshmallows and twisted thickets.

The works create a strange dichotomy: a sense of quiet boding served up in a blast of raucous color.

``Color makes me see,'' Cline says. ``Whenever I start putting color into something, that's when it comes alive.''

Slender, tan with an almost liquid look pouring from her dirt-brown eyes, Cline, 36, emits an earthiness that's echoed in her work.

She uses oils, acrylics and pastels, applying her strokes in a flowing fashion that works well to depict environments awash with gritty winds and frothy seas. Her sweeping purple roads move forward into unknown futures, as do her board-toting expressionistic figures momentarily perched at the ocean's edge.

An intuitive painter, Cline describes her work as more unconscious than deliberate. ``I work to get more of a feeling of something rather than the thing itself,'' she says.

Each painterly stroke helps dissolve borders of land, sea and sky, molding subtle nuances of the barrier islands. Slathers of yellow, green, rose, orange, blue and purple form days where the sky melts into the sea and the sea devours the shore. Distant shell-searching trios, tenuous crows fluttering their wings and restless red-winged blackbirds dabbing scrub brush filter into the natural scenes.

Cline, a UNC-Wilmington fine arts graduate, came to the Outer Banks 17 years ago and has left her mark on the fragile environment. Her tropical batiks, murals and paintings cover the walls of many local eateries.

Chow down on some tasty tuna tacos at Goombays in Kill Devil Hills with Cline's jungle and marine-themed scenes as a backdrop. Tortuga's Lie in Nags Head, the Rundown Cafe in Kitty Hawk and Bridges Seafood Restaurant in Colington are just a few of the local venues where you can sample her upbeat art.

If you're looking to purchase one of Cline's colorful creations, check out Southern Bean at the Marketplace in Kitty Hawk or her show in Manteo.

She's prolific. All the work in The Frame Shop show was created this year. Coming up for Cline: more figurative work, interior paintings and a continuation of her love affair with the fragile ecosystem. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARY ELLEN RIDDLE

Nags Head artist Marcia Cline, who primarily paints scenes from

everyday life on the Outer Banks, has a show of her new works

through Sept. 30 at The Frame Shop in downtown Manteo. It includes

about 20 of her big, bold, color-saturated canvases, all created

this year.

Graphic

HOW TO SEE HER

Who: Nags Head artist Marcia Cline

What: A show of recent work including oils, acrylics and pastels

When: Through Sept. 30. Gallery hours, Tuesday through Friday, 10

a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sat., 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Where: The Frame Shop, 100 Old Tom St., Manteo