Exchange Gallery

Every month VAE highlights the work of four or five exemplary VAE artists in its Exchange Gallery. This highly visible retail space in the front windows of VAE's City Market Gallery is excellent exposure for artists and a favorite shopping spot of patrons. Artists are juried into the space annually. For more information contact Rachel Berry at 919.828.7834 ex 6854, or rberry@visualartexchange.org.

Click here to learn how to apply for your own featured artist exhibition!

The Exchange Gallery is brought to you by The Allen Tate Company.

January 2009 Exchange Gallery Artists:

• Cheryl Harrison
• Don Mertz
• Kris Niedrich
• Jenn Parrigin
• Marjorie Pierson

Cheryl Harrison

I discovered working in surface design on fibers this year and I have been intrigued by the many techniques and wonderful vibrant colors available through this medium. These pieces are listed as mixed fibers, but many different processes went into creating them including: Hand-dying, painting and silk screening on cotton and silk, serti resists, embroidery and digital printing on organza silk. I had a lot of fun creating these pieces and I hope that they communicate a spirit of introspection and playfulness.

Don Mertz

For me painting is a demanding passion... and a great reason to smoke a cigar, drink a great single malt scotch, and listen to Willie Nelson. And by the way, painting offers me the opportunity and challenge to create using endless combinations of color, shape and texture. It never ceases to intrigue and amaze me. Thick or thin, matte or glossy, brushed on, poured on, spread on- it makes no difference. Painting is truly my passion.

Please understand that my art has no "meaning" or "message." I'm not attempting to make a political, moral, or cultural statement, nor champion a particular cause with my art. My sole objective is to create a body of work that pleases the eye. But I work hard at that.

My paintings are very abstract or non-representational. When I paint I try to give free expression to both sides of my brain- the logical, deliberate, precise side, and the spontaneous, intuitive, creative side. Sometimes one side sometimes the other, exists in one of my paintings- sometimes they coexist on the same canvas.

I really can't say much more about what influences my work. Take a look. Have your own experience of it. See what you see. Feel what you feel. Maybe it triggers a memory, evokes an emotion, or seems to symbolize an idea. Perhaps it reminds you of nature or seems to resemble a person, place or thing, or...

Does it simply please your eye?

I'll paint; enjoy my cigar, scotch and Willie. You look, you feel and you decide.

Kris Niedrich

Inspired by my life-long love of color, I want to share with others its beauty and power. Using organic elements, I create surreal images with a crude texture doing rust impressions on paper. Each piece is a surprise depending on how well the rust is received by various handmade papers. By conveying only part of the information, I allow the viewer to interpret the rest in hopes that they, too, will connect more deeply with the world around us.



Jenn Parrigin

In my artwork, I explore human experiences through the use of conceptual imagery. I create pieces that use my own life experiences as subject matter. Although the work is personal, the ideas are relevant to all people which allow viewers to think about how it applies to their own lives.

During my career as an artist, my work has made many transitions from printmaking to the present mixed media. I have since evolved from realism in my prints to more conceptual works in my mixed media. Part of this evolution can be explained by my experience and experimentation with multiple mediums. The subjects of my early work talked about being innocent and young. At that point, I was in college as a young woman and really had no life experience to relay in my work. After college I began to paint. This work had a more humorous tone while experimenting with the movement Pop Surrealism. After my move from Ohio to North Carolina, I had a very difficult transition. I began painting while using elements of sculpture. The themes became much more personal and full of real emotion. My work has become sculptural in a sense but I consider it all mixed media because I do not want to limit my voice. I love to experiment with new materials and techniques but creating thoughtful, emotional work at the same time.

Marjorie Pierson

In my native southwest Louisiana, there are lush, exotic landscapes that resemble no other part of America. Near the Gulf coast, and nearly at sea level, my hometown New Iberia flourishes around a haunting green bayou. There are ancient live oaks and cypress trees and rare native wildlife. Travel south twenty more miles and you'll find the Louisiana marsh. It is twice the size of the Florida everglades- but it won't be for long. Scientists now call this marsh the fastest disappearing land mass on earth.

Since the 1930s, nearly a million acres of wetlands along Louisiana's coast have been lost to erosion- more than 25 square miles each year. Since the coastal marsh buffers the force of hurricane storm surges, this relentless sinking leaves low-lying Louisiana communities exposed and vulnerable. Hurricane season becomes more dangerous every year to families like my own.

I began the Louisiana Marsh series in 2007. I wanted to document the fragile beauty of Louisiana's coastal wetlands, an ecologically diverse region of marshes, swamps and bayous. These are the watery, mysterious landscapes of my ancestors and those of my own childhood. They are verdant ecosystems teeming with life and struggling to survive. My photographs are of found landscapes- natural surfaces, etched by the salt marsh in southwest Louisiana- that depict the endless cycle of loss and renewal after each hurricane season.

This coastal land loss is significant both regionally and nationally. Louisiana's wetlands are home to more than five million American waterfowl, many rare and endangered species. The Louisiana Gulf coast also provides a quarter of the oil and gas that Americans consume, and about a third of the seafood Americans eat. Every year of coastal erosion increases the threat to the livelihoods of millions of Americans.

See previous featured artists:

December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007