The 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!

March 2009 Exchange Gallery Artists:

• Linda Carmel
• Warren Hicks
• Leah Palmer Preiss
• Jay Yager

Linda Carmel

I was born and raised in England. I lived in religious communities for eight years in India, England and Oregon, where I came to understand that every task is an opportunity for meditation and that every task done with total awareness is a work of art. I did not realize the value of this insight until I returned to making art. I have learned to respect the unknown in my work, allowing the paintings a space to grow. I paint from a place inside myself, beyond my mind.

In my paintings I am concerned with surface. I sculpt and burnish texture onto my canvasses so that they become both visually and tactually exciting. I take my inspiration from the world around me; from patterns in nature and my observations on the human condition. I paint vignettes that give viewers refuge in a safer and simpler time. The scenes are slightly surreal, with somewhat ambiguous perspective and characters that have a cartoonish quality with a heavy gloss gel finish. The characters are separate; alone or in small groups, reflecting moments in memory, rather than an integral part of the picture. I want the viewer to linger with each depicted memory, as well as with the overall scene. The viewer remains outside the scene; an onlooker, feeling comforted, but not comfortable.

Warren Hicks

Warren Hicks has arrived at a life devoted to art in a circuitous manner. His training in architectural drafting and his experience in the music industry fold neatly into his work, each former career path creating an impression evident in his current progress.

Hicks was born and raised in Chickasha, Oklahoma and studied Architectural Design at Oklahoma State University. Prior to graduation, he decided to explore opportunities within the music industry in Miami, Florida. Hicks spent twelve years in the music world before returning to design and architecture. While working at a prestigious architectural firm in Columbia, South Carolina, Hicks began exploring freelance graphic and web design.

Fourteen successful years left him professionally secure, but wanting for a better creative outlet. Hicks made a momentous decision to divert all of his energy towards a life in art. Completely self-taught, he began painting in 2002, quickly developing a unique style that he calls Surreal Geometric Abstraction.

His artistic evolution has been as unique as his personal revolution. He has morphed through a progression of styles and influences - embracing, digesting, and discarding - always in search of the next challenge. It seems he never stands still. Witty titles that often employ wordplay suggest an art that winks at the peccadilloes of everyday life.

This seemingly random hybridization of styles could go on productively for quite some time, it appears. Kandinsky, Arp, Miro, Braque, Klee - pureed in Hicks's aesthetic, eclectic blender only to come out as - well - a Hicks original.

Leah Palmer Preiss

I have always been intrigued by the ways words and images interact. For years as a freelance illustrator and calligrapher I've interpreted texts visually. When creating my own paintings I found I missed the presence of words, so I began to add collaged backgrounds to the canvas, usually scanned and archivally printed pages from my collection of antique books.

As I paint over the texts, I feel a curious conversation taking place between the words and images. Layers of meaning and texture emerge in a way that continues to surprise and excite me. I explore both the ideas and the visual effects that grow out of each piece, hoping to create an experience of discovery for the viewer as well.



Jay Yager

The subjects I choose in my photographs reflect my interest in the ways in which individuals and institutions organize and display their chosen "faces" to the collective society. Such things as ritual actions, pageantry, staging, ceremonial celebration, advertising and other forms of public presentation reveal much about our societal and individual values.

The framing of the images is a result of my long-standing desire for clarity and simplicity in my works. At the same time I look for and welcome the somewhat unpredictable manifestation of mystery that informs and sharpens the more conscious ordering of the formal elements.

See previous featured artists:

February 2009
January 2009
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