Skimming the Shadows
Oil on canvas
30 x 40 in.
$6500
Available through South Street Art Gallery, Easton, MD
This March artist Nancy Tankersley has a solo exhibition titled Journeys at South Street Art Gallery in Easton, Maryland. The entire exhibition of work can be seen at South Street Art Gallery, as well viewed online.
To Nancy, the word “journeys” can mean many things when applied to a body of work. It can be scenes of all the places she lived or visited. Or journeys can signify her own artistic growth from a young woman and beginning artist to a mature, experienced artist. It can be a journey through subject matter, message, and personal aesthetic.
“This new body of work touches on all of these aspects with landscapes and interiors from various parts of our country and beyond that I have been fortunate to experience, see and paint. It also includes the wide range of subject matter I have explored during my years of painting. But most important, I hope it shows my journey from being a painter of things and places to a painter of less tangible qualities,” says Nancy.
“My years as a portrait painter and studio painter and then as a plein air painter have given me the experience and skills to paint “things”. And often these things had narratives that I could use to evoke an emotion that I could share with the viewer. In recent years, however, I have returned more and more to the studio where I could explore the paints and surfaces and experiment with new painting techniques and tools.”
Nancy continues, explaining her recent body of work is more about memory, imagination and emotion. “As Thomas Cole the famous Hudson River landscape artist said, ‘If the imagination is shackled, and nothing is described but what we see, seldom will anything truly great be produced either in Painting or Poetry.’ In my studio, I have the luxury of time to ‘draw a veil over the common details, the unessential parts which shall leave the great features, whether the beautiful or the sublime dominant in the mind.’” (Thomas Cole to Asher B. Durand, 1838)
“Nancy Tankersley is one of America’s premier living artists. Through her painting, her teaching and mentoring of other artists, her consulting with arts and civic organizations, and her long journey as an artist she is influential in contemporary American painting. Any collection that purports to represent the late 20th and early 21st centuries in American art is incomplete without Nancy’s work. Nancy is a true American Master,” says Alan Brock, collector and owner of South Street Art Gallery, Easton, MD.
Learn more about Nancy and other works on her website. Stay connected on Facebook and sign up for Nancy’s e-newsletter.