"Large Stories": New Work By Chris Flory and Betti Pettanati-Longinotti

March 27 - April 30,  2016
Reception: Gallery Hop, Firday April 1, 7 – 9 p.m.

Chris Flory’s contribution to this exhibition is one acrylic painting on paper and 5-1/2 inches by 25 feet, titled “I took up pie seriously after i was 50”. Although not specifically referential, the painting is, like all of her others, a landscape of the artist’s life. The story unfolded as she worked on the painting. When she began she had no idea what the end would be, or even the middle.

Chris Flory has a BFA in Printmaking from Philadelphia College of Art and an MFA in Painting from UNC-Greensboro. She lives in Winston-Salem with her husband and has been a member of Artworks Gallery since 1993.

Betti Pettinati-Longinotti is exhibiting mixed media oil paintings, exploring personal identity through contemporary still life. These mixed media oil paintings explore the relationship between everyday objects and a cultural identity through personal belongings and experience. Juxtaposed is play with both traditional and contemporary painting and mixed media composition and technique. With influences as diverse as Audrey Flack and Jim Dine, new variations are crafted from both opaque and transparent layers.

Ever since being a young adult artist, the traditional understanding of the human condition has fascinated the artist. Still life conveys a story through subject matter reflective of the time and culture we live in. Random historical information on each subject is gathered from the Internet, and a personal memory interwoven. What starts out as vision soon becomes corroded into a carnival of interpretation, leaving only a sense of what could have been and the possibility of a new understanding, morphed from the irony of older aesthetic values. As wavering political correctness becomes transformed through emergent and repetitive practice, through words, objects and logos, the viewer is left with clues to the edges of our era, location and heritage.

Betti Pettinati-Longinotti works in drawing, painting and flat glass. She received a BFA from the Maryland Institute, College of Art and her MA from the University of the Arts/ Philadelphia, in Art Education with a studio major in Glass; an MFA in Visual Arts through the Lesley University College of Art and Design. Her work has been shown internationally. Betti is a juried member of Artworks Gallery and Piedmont Craftsmen, and also holds membership in the American Glass Guild and the Southeastern College Art Conference.

************************

Artworks mourns the death of founding member Ben Rouzie on April 2, 2016. Read the Winston-Salem Journal article here.

© 2016 Artworks Gallery, Inc. All rights to images in this site remain with the respective artists. Images may not be displayed, printed, published or reproduced without permission of the artist.       Webmaster       Public Relations: Kim Varnadoe