Cheryl Powell

Artist Bio

Cheryl Powell studied Fashion Design at Pratt Institute before transferring to Carnegie Mellon University, where she earned a BFA in Graphic Design. She began painting after moving to Winston-Salem, NC, setting up her first studio in the parlor of her 1929 Craftsman bungalow.

Following five years as a stay-at-home mom, Cheryl launched a graphic design career at Sara Lee Corporation, which left little time for painting. In 1998, after completing an MA in Illustration at Syracuse University, she transitioned to freelance work, balancing design, illustration, and a renewed focus on fine art, including plein air painting, figure drawing, and portraiture.

Since retiring in 2015, Cheryl has concentrated on studio work, exploring figurative and architectural subjects alongside her growing interest in collage. Her studio is located at 560 North Trade Street in Winston-Salem’s Arts District, in the same building as Artworks Gallery.

Artists Statement

People, places or the combination of the two are my greatest inspiration. I love how the shapes of those things often reveal more than the details. Just a silhouette of someone in movement or in stillness can say so much.

Big solid shapes adjacent to small ones, soft broken lines versus hard solid marks creates energy. Angles, proportions, curves, geometric shapes all build an image and create a mood. 

The fun with oils begins when I put down the brush and start looking for other tools to apply it. Anything that can roll, scrape, stamp or drag through the paint is up for grabs. 

The challenge of collage lies in the variety of acrylic paints and papers I employ and the techniques I choose. By mixing paint I can create the colors I want but when choosing papers of different textures and varying degrees of transparency and layering them over the paint is magical. It is a process of layering and working over the surface again and again until you love what you see.

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