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!

September 2008 Exchange Gallery Artists:

• Kathy Brancato
• Shade Elam Maret
• Constance Pappalardo
• Elizabeth Walker

Kathy Brancato

My background is in art education, and I have always enjoyed the simplicity of children’s art.

I paint mostly landscapes and especially vistas. I love scenes that show as far as the eye can see. Many of my canvases are done in a diptych format, and I usually prepare them with a red ground. I paint in oil, and my method is loose with simple shapes. I also work with a limited palette, as I enjoy mixing colors and seeing how they interact with other colors.

Previously, I was an abstract painter, but now I have moved toward a blend of abstraction and realism.

Shade Elam Maret

I paint because I enjoy the process of creating. I lose myself in a sea of reds, greens yellows and blues, using shapes and color in bright, loose brush strokes to capture the beauty in what might be considered an ordinary house or scene. Exploring the endless possibilities to capture playful spirit in my paintings is a lifetime commitment. The works of Van Gogh, Matisse, Chagal and Hopper inspire me. My hope is that I will be a good steward of my creative ability and that my work might somehow uplift or restore others.

Constance Pappalardo

It is interesting that right now I am working out of two places. I have two separate approaches to painting, and I move from one to the other like I would move between two adjoining rooms. I think that one would be able to recognize "me" in both but only with some sincere effort. At a glance, I seem to be two very different people.

One body of work is all color and form and very romantic and idealistic in spirit. This is the more intuitive of the two. Here I work from an unconscious source, and the viewer experiences the piece, interprets the painting from their imagination. These pieces consist of a horizontal composition, and since the horizon line is a given they are generally interpreted as landscapes. These are places created--escape routes I paint for myself as well as the viewer. Then there is the vertical work, which began in color and has now moved into black & white. Rotating the canvas from horizontal to vertical totally changed the game for me. It was no longer about what it looked like or reminded one of but rather all about emotion, composition, color and whatever magic occurs when a painting begins to speak for itself out of total , unapologetic abstraction. The work became more deliberate--not in the sense that I had it all sketched out but more from an intention to face up to my demons rather than escape from them. Some of the black & white verticals were born out of the genius of others, such as Mozart and Bach. I have recently started the Shout Box series, which incorporates the starker elements of the vertical work with the more romantic tones of personal writing and shared memory.

It is hard to say whether the wall between these two rooms will ever be torn down but for now, I do enjoy the journey from one chamber to the other.



Elizabeth Walker

Where I live, the ever sprawling urban community has virtually replaced the agricultural life style. As such, I am inspired by the vignettes of rural North Carolina encountered during my daily life. Some of my favorite subjects are scenes where structures are being reclaimed by nature: neglected old houses over grown with vines, and trees standing guard over abandoned fields where farms once flourished.

Trees are particularly important elements of my oil paintings. They have a spiritual quality which projects an aura of mother earth, and reminds me of simpler times. Each one has a distinctive personality, and the relationships between them are reflective of the interaction I see between people.

As subdivisions and commercial developments continue to encroach on the rapidly dwindling farm lands, I try to capture and express the precious way of life that seems to have nearly disappeared from North Carolina.

See previous featured artists:

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