Also open for: Gallery Hop: Friday, November 3, 7-9 pm (Artist will be in attendance.) Art Crush: Friday, November 17, 7-9 pm
Wendell Myers is entranced by the transformative power of improvisation and the extraordinary outcomes that arise with spontaneity and reaction. Jazz music, with its emphasis on evoking emotion, stirring the heart, and kindling creativity, has been a wellspring of inspiration for his work.
“Dreaming in Gold”
Myers artworks take the form of abstract landscapes, weaving together memories from the diverse places he has inhabited and explored throughout life. His creations are a tribute to the ever-changing beauty of the natural world. Through his art, Myers aspires to encapsulate the very essence of these locales and share his profound affection for them with others.
“Purple Fantasy”
Painting, with its immediacy and ability to yield rapid results, is a medium that can be guided but never entirely controlled. Myers employs motion, light, color, and energy as a vocabulary to evoke emotional states and conjure an air of mystery. A fascination with improvisation is ever-present, resembling the improvisational nature of jazz, where musicians simultaneously listen, react, and create. In the realm of both music and art, it is the unforeseen results that are the most expressive and delightful.
The paintings of Wendell Myers are abstract landscapes, based on memories of the places he’s lived and visited; the great plains, north woods and lake country of his youth, the Carolina mountains and seascapes of adult life, and the desert Southwest where he has frequently vacationed. The works in this show, “Enchanted Forests” are inspired by the countryside of Poland, where he and his wife have spent a great deal of time over the past 15 years. The series is also influenced by the works of Wolf Kahn and Mark Rothko, referring to it as a “Rothkovian lozenge of color.”
Wendell Myers holds a BFA from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Early In his career, he worked as a studio potter, selling directly to the public out of his studio, at art fairs and shows in the Midwest and Northeast. Eventually, accompanying his wife, Pamela Howland, to Winston-Salem, he earned his MD from Wake Forest School of Medicine. He has been a practicing radiologist in the area for over 25 years. 12 years ago Myers returned to making art, this time choosing to focus on acrylic painting.
Wendell Myers, “Enchanted Forest”Lea Lackey-Zachmann, “Dogwood Knows Temporary and Perpetual”
Lea Lackey-Zachmann | Dogwood Knows Temporary and Perpetual
The large paintings in this exhibit depict trees Lea Lackey-Zachmann walks past daily. The central painted rectangle in each work represents a tree as we might view it. The smaller painted rectangles above, below, and beside, represent the tree abstractly or symbolically. Most of the artist’s painting career has focused on the tension between Realism and Abstraction. Asking which best expresses the tree’s true nature? All these depictions are a visual language that seeks to evoke a feeling or insight into the identity and nature of the trees shown here.
The artist reveals, “This exhibit was inspired by my knowing that trees are essential to our life and happiness on earth. Our appreciation of them helps determine our future.”
Lea Lackey-Zachmann holds an MFA in painting from the University of NC at Greensboro, along with a graduate teacher’s certificate in Art Education. She received a BA in Art from Winthrop University and is now retired after having taught at High Point University for 29 years and Salem College for 10 years. She has been an instructor of various classes at WFU, Guilford College, and Elon University as well as having taught and served on the board of the Sawtooth Center for Visual Art. She is dedicated to community arts endeavors of all kinds. Her paintings, prints, and drawings are in various collections on the east coast of the US. She is a founding member of Artworks Gallery.
Kimberly Varnadoe’s current work represents a passage through conflicting times. She reflects, “We all have had to adjust to a different way of life during 2020-21. Some of us have gone or are going through other adjustments that are more personal.” These works reflect thoughts, memories, stress, and therefore are a bit chaotic. They are personal to Varnadoe, yet they speak to what many of us think and feel during life’s tumultuous changes. These works were created with a wide variety of media throughout each piece. The meshing together of these materials is a reflection on the many layers of overlap we experience emotionally as we adjust to challenges faced day to day, embracing the complex and contemplative.
Kimberly Varnadoe received her BFA in Painting from the University of South Alabama and her MFA in Printmaking from the University of Memphis. She works with experimental photography and a variety of printmaking techniques, often combining the processes. She enjoys experimentation and feels that art is most alive during the art-making — the final work of art is the record of the art process. She has been a member of Artworks Gallery, in Winston-Salem, since 2003.
Kimberly Varnadoe, “After Life”A piece by Jessica Tefft inspired by Pamela Howland’s music.
Tribute to Pamela Howland
The artists of Artworks Gallery will be paying tribute to the wife of one of their own, who died in September. Gallery members will show a unique collection of tribute works created to honor the music of pianist Pamela Howland. She was the wife of Artworks’ member Wendell Myers. As an accomplished pianist, she taught for many years in the Wake Forest University music department. Howland also recorded 19 albums consisting of composers Chopin, Debussy, and Ravel. She performed nationally and internationally, was a Steinway Artist, a 2017-2018 Fulbright Scholar to Poland, and a Chopin specialist. A percentage of sales will go to the Poland Fulbright Assistance Fund at https://en.fulbright.edu.pl/support-us/
Gallery Hours: Wednesday – Saturday 11-5; Sunday 1-4 Exhibition dates: October 31- November 27, 2021 Reception: Sunday, November 14, 2-4 pm
The exhibit is free and open to the public. For information about this press release, contact pr@artworks-gallery.org
Wendell Myers presents Autumn Visions Virtual Show for Fall 2020
Autumn Visions Virtual Show is an online-only show of recent paintings by Artworks artist Wendell Myers. A collection of recent paintings having to do with Autumn. You can see all of the paintings in detail at wendellmyers.com or on his Facebook artist’s page.
The video includes a short introductory video with the artist and includes many of the exhibit’s paintings, as well as beautiful music by Myers’s wife, Pam, “Field of Poppies,” from “Three Scenes from Poland.” You can see all of the images on Myers facebook artists’ page, or on wendellmyers.com.
