Down Creek Gallery will continue its seasonal “Expose Yourself to Art” series, but with only two openings this year.
The first one will be from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 6, and will feature five local artists, refreshments and live music by Raygun Ruby. The second opening will be in the fall, said gallery owner Marissa Gross.
In addition to myriad regional painters and multi-media artists, the openings will showcase new works by painters Douglas Hoover, Sarah Searight and Mark Brown and mixed-media artists Robert Chestnut and Roy Revels.
Inspired by the beauty of the Outer Banks, Hoover’s works capture natural light and coastal themes that embody his flair for realism.
His works can be viewed in many publications, including “How to Collect A Life,” a book of essays from the editor of Our State Magazine.
Native islander Chestnut creates lively, vibrant images of both surf and Ocracoke-themed works. When Chestnut is not creating oil paintings and prints, he helps run Ride The Wind Surf Shop with his family.
An avid surfer, photographer, print-maker and painter, Chestnut has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Jacksonville University, Florida. Recently, he has focused on film photography, development and printing, as well as print-press and copper etching.
Abstract artist Revels will show new abstract paintings and drawings. Revels views his work as “more conceptual than anything else and means to be thought provoking. It gives individuals the opportunity to draw their own opinions about the work.”
Although Revels admits he does not like to “paint a pretty picture, I do, however, paint a story where the viewer is forced into painting their own ending.”
Plein-air painter Searight has been a part-time resident of Ocracoke since 1999. She spends the other part of her year at home in Port Aransas and Austin, Texas.
Her whimsical scenes in watercolor, graphite and oils are inspired by witnessing the constant subtle changes in the colors of the dunes, marshes and ocean.
Searight has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Texas in printmaking, drawing and painting.
Island painter Brown, a native of eastern North Carolina, has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Art Institute of Chicago. Influenced by film, literature, music, travel and time spent in a Benedictine monastery in Italy, myths are almost always present in his images of seafaring life, Blackbeard and Ocracoke Island.
