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!

June 2008 Exchange Gallery Artists:

• Jill Dunston
• Tamar Harris
• Carol Lancaster
• Don Mertz
• Ella Williams

Jill Dunston

I have always loved to create. It is part of me. It gives me the ability to express myself through sight and touch. I use steel, especially stainless steel that demands to be noticed and has a mind of its own. I understand this material, so with my welder and hammer, I bring the steel under control and force it into subjection by molding it into soft or rigid shapes. Then I grind it to a finish.

Tamar Harris

Tamar Harris' work primarily focuses on mixed media sculpture. She is currently the owner and director of M. Street Gallery, a task force member for the Raleigh Women's Chamber of Commerce and Director of the Jones Auditorium Alumnae Gallery. Tamar is a Meredith College alum, and is active as an advisory board member of the College.

Carol Lancaster

My work is mostly abstract. I use acrylic paints on large canvas and on 300 lb. watercolor paper. The image evolves through a thought process, not drawn on paper. In creating an abstract, a drawing doesn't give me the flexibility to move in different directions from where I started. That occurs when something wonderful happens on canvas, when two colors collide and begin to intermingle. Certain colors do that, while other colors stay where you put them. That's the challenge that is so creatively exciting. With abstracts you can begin with a design thought and end with something totally opposite.

Don Mertz

Don's paintings are abstract or non-representational. He needs to give free expression to both sides of his brain -- the logical, deliberate, precise side, and the spontaneous, intuitive, creative side. Sometimes one side exists in the painting, sometimes the other and sometimes they are both on the same canvas. There is not much more to say about what influences his 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?

Ella Williams

As an abstract artist Ella's use of paper and found objects in conjunction with a painter's medium is the challenge to make her work intriguing to viewers. Ella has a BA degree in Art and has studied at several art institutions including the Art Student League of New York City. Since moving to Cary she has had multiple shows, both individually and with other artists. Awards have been received in local juried shows.

See previous featured artists:
July 2007
August 2007
September 2007
October 2007
February 2008
March 2008
April 2008
May 2008