Using Renaissance and Baroque traditions as a catalyst for her dramatic narratives, painter Virginia Derryberry invites the viewer into her creative world — one filled with dichotomy, costume, mystery, and more.

Executed properly, narrative painting has near infinite ways to transport the viewer through places, ideas, and experiences. There can be little doubt that painter Virginia Derryberry has mastered this process, establishing herself among the pantheon of Asheville, North Carolina, artists.

Telling Derryberry’s story has many points of entry, but experiences as a young student at Vanderbilt University proved pivotal for her artistic career. An art history major who occasionally experimented in art-making, Derryberry found herself greatly attracted to Renaissance and Baroque imagery, specifically pictures with strong lighting, complex compositions, and engaging narratives. “Many of these images stay with me,” she writes, “so when I begin the drawing/visual research for a new piece, some kind of related scenario pops up in my head. I use that image (or images) as a catalyst for environment, lighting, body language, and costuming for my models. Over time, I’ve really started to think of myself as being like a cinematographer, always visually ‘scanning’ a space or environment for possibilities. I usually work on ‘suites’ of pieces, sort of a small group of images within a larger series, so one piece often tells me what to do next — not exactly like the chapters in a narrative or scenes in a play — but related to the idea of time, performance, and character development.”

Virginia Derryberry, “Celo,” 2015, oil on canvas with attached fabric, 70 x 47 in. (c) Virginia Derryberry 2016

With this in mind, it should come as no surprise that Derryberry was also an avid performer in theater during her undergraduate career. The artist suggests, “The idea of multiple personalities/personae really engaged me, and I think that is still being played out in my paintings. I paint some of the same people over and over again, but in each piece the persona is slightly different according to lighting, composition, body language, and costuming.”

Virginia Derryberry, “The Four Elements,” 2013, oil on canvas, 96 x 54 in. (c) Virginia Derryberry 2016

For nearly a decade, Derryberry’s work has increasingly explored alchemy, a Medieval philosophy based on the principle of rebis — “a belief that most aspects of human nature — and nature in general — are built on the idea of dialogue and contrast,” as Derryberry states. In fact, a number of artists influential to Derryberry, such as Michelangelo Caravaggio, have also found dichotomy and alchemical principles captivating.

Virginia Derryberry, “Peaceable Kingdom,” 2012, oil on canvas with 16 embroidered ‘onesies,’ 96 x 60 in.
(c) Virginia Derryberry 2016

“Peaceable Kingdom” is an outstanding work that brings each of these concepts and influences to the fore. Derryberry explains how Da Vinci’s “Madonna of the Rocks,” Edward Hicks’ “The Peaceable Kingdom,” and other paintings led to the realization of this magnetic picture: “‘Peaceable Kingdom’ began as a portrait and figure narrative to honor my daughter, Elizabeth, and the birth of her daughter (my granddaughter), Virginia, in 2012. I decided to combine a Madonna and Child format (actually a reference to Da Vinci’s ‘Madonna of the Rocks,’ where Jesus is holding up his hand to John in blessing) with Edward Hicks’ version of ‘The Peaceable Kingdom.’ I’ve always loved the naïve quality of Hicks’ paintings and especially his reference to the idea of the ‘lion laying down with the lamb.’ What struck me about the imagery in this painting is how much the wider environment is included and how it suggests a return to the Garden of Eden. Combining three mythic stories in one — the Garden of Eden, an otherworldly mother and child story, and the possibility of wild animals at peace with one another and humanity — excited and challenged me. My other intent was to go past the Biblical story and to suggest the here and now in terms of the complex struggle that we, as humans, have with finding a peaceful relationship with our environment.

“A contemporary aspect is my use of 16 ‘onesies’ (actually worn by Virginia over time) that I embroidered with the letters of the title. I think their inclusion suggests many things — a larger life and experience beyond one particular child, a ‘levity’ that plays against the gravity and physicality of life and even the suggestion of cloud forms over the earth. Many of these, of course, reference alchemical imagery as well.”

Virginia Derryberry, “Sol and Luna Have a Conversation,” 2015, oil on canvas, 94 x 72 in. (c) Virginia Derryberry 2016

Derryberry’s primary goal with works such as “Peaceable Kingdom” is twofold, involving both confusion and revelation. The play between the two offers a chance for viewers to ignite self-inquiry while participating in the discovery of the narratives. Derryberry writes, “I try to guide the viewer first to be puzzled about what they are seeing. For example, sometimes I deliberately use conflicting light sources or I put in an object or form that simply doesn’t belong. Secondly, I want the viewer to be lured into the painting due to the color and sensuality of the surface, caught, if you will, by the complex paint passages. Once they are in there for a while, hopefully they start to ask questions of the image and, ultimately, questions about themselves. That’s the main reason that I address multiple story lines in a painting — so that I am not deliberately illustrating a specific message but asking for a more metaphorical interpretation.”

Virginia Derryberry, “Water Duo,” 2014, oil on canvas, 60 x 36 in. (c) Virginia Derryberry 2016

As Derryberry’s teaching career in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of North Carolina at Asheville concludes, one might assume the artist is fading into the sunset. But the truth is quite the opposite. With teaching playing a decreasing role in Derryberry’s life, personal ventures in painting await through a number of solo exhibitions, and artist residency programs in France and Italy. “I have scheduled four upcoming solo exhibitions, titled ‘Private Domain,’” she says, “essentially a traveling exhibition to four separate venues over the next two years, which will give me the opportunity to explore how viewers — mostly college students — react to my work.”

To learn more, visit Virginia Derryberry.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.

The eclectic landscapes by a great Dutch experimental printmaker compose an otherworldly exhibition at The Metropolitan, New York, this spring. How will you interpret these thought-provoking impressions?

On view now through May 21 at the Metropolitan, New York, “The Mysterious Landscapes of Hercules Segers” is an entertaining exhibition that explores the life, career, and prints of experimental Dutch printmaker Hercules Segers (1589-1638). The show marks the first exhibition in the United States for the influential artist, whose works were even collected by Rembrandt, who owned eight of Segers’ paintings and a printing plate.

The Met writes, “Segers’ surviving works are extremely rare: only 10 impressions of his prints are in museums in the United States (one in The MET collection), and only 15 paintings have been attributed to the artist. ‘The Mysterious Landscapes of Hercules Segers’ will feature a selection of these paintings, in addition to almost all of Segers’ prints in varying impressions. The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, whose collection of Segers’ work is the largest in the world, is generously lending its entire holdings (74 prints, two oil sketches, and one painting).

“Segers’ highly experimental approach to printmaking has given him a cult following among modern and contemporary artists. His works appear so much out of their time that filmmaker Werner Herzog incorporated details of Segers’ landscapes in a piece — titled ‘Hearsay of the Soul’ — that he created for the 2012 Whitney Biennial.”

To learn more, visit The Metropolitan.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.

John James Audubon’s monumental Birds of America, originally published in 1838, has been an inspirational starting point for countless artists, including Larry Rivers and others during this outstanding group show in Los Angeles.

Twenty contemporary artists, alongside New York School and Pop artist Larry Rivers, have come together for a compelling group exhibition at 101/EXHIBIT in Los Angeles, California, that highlights their mutual love and respect for John James Audubon (1785-1851) and his seminal publication Birds of America (1838). The artists are experimental, collectively providing a survey of the various painting processes and techniques in use today. Participating artists include Jason Shawn Alexander, Pedro Barbeito, Brett Diemer, Zara Monet Feeney, Robert Fleisher, Thomas Frontini, Chambliss Giobbi, Daniel Horowitz, David Jacobs, Aaron Johnson, Nelson Loskamp, Patrick Neal, Paul Paiement, Tom Sanford, Jorge Santos, Kristen Schiele, Alfred Steiner, Eric White, Kent Williams, and Eve Woods.

“The exhibition consists of a survey of works by Rivers, inspired by Audubon’s book, exhibited alongside works by contemporary artists who have been asked to create his or her own interpretation of a plate of their choice from the book,” the gallery reports.

“The bird series is an offshoot of another bigger series that Larry executed in the late ’80s to early ’90s, called ‘Art and the Artist,’” says David Joel, executive director of the Larry Rivers Foundation and Rivers’ former studio assistant. ‘Essentially, Larry would focus on an artist and re-paint that artist’s works, incorporating the artist’s portrait into this new work. Rivers treated this series similarly, invoking his soft spot for birds and painting their portraits on canvas while simultaneously incorporating Audubon’s essence into each piece.”

Titled “Birds of America: Explorations of Audubon, The Paintings of Larry Rivers and Others,” the exhibition runs through May 13. To learn more, visit 101/EXHIBIT.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.

The fixation of male artists on the female body is a well-chronicled fact in the annals of art history, perhaps especially with regard to these three Austrian masters of Modernism. Their iconic works are currently encouraging viewers to consider “the woman question.”

More than 65 paintings, watercolors, and drawings by Viennese Secessionists Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Oskar Kokoschka are currently on display at Galerie St. Etienne in New York City through June 30.

Titled “The Woman Question,” the exhibition seeks to explore they ways in which these monumental modernists explored conceptions of gender relations and sexual identity at the turn of the 20th century. “The exhibition focuses on four principal subjects,” the gallery says, “the formal portrait, the nude, the couple, and the mother. Klimt’s sensuous, flattering drawings of women contrast with the contorted bodies depicted by Kokoschka. Schiele’s nudes were so provocative that some could not, at the time, be publicly exhibited.”

The exhibition takes its titled from the artists’ approach, which they themselves referred to as the “woman question,” albeit in slightly different ways. Continuing, the gallery offers, “In turn-of- the-century Vienna, females were viewed as closer to nature and hence more inherently ‘primitive’ than males. Prompted by Darwin’s theories, men hypothesized that allowing women to have influence or power outside the home would lead to a dangerous ‘devolution’ of the human species. Gustav Klimt repeatedly depicted women as amphibious creatures, as in ‘Moving Water,’ 1898, an oil on canvas painting. The wanton sexuality of Klimt’s nudes symbolizes not liberation but inequality.”

“The Woman Question” equally explores the gender dynamics in Kokoschka’s tumultuous lithographs and Schiele’s early mature works, circa 1917. To learn more, visit Galerie St. Etienne.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.

Strecker Nelson West Gallery invites you on a journey to the big, bad, mad, beautiful, and amazing world we inhabit through the creative vision of several accomplished representational painters. Are you up for the trip?

Artistic visions of new and old worlds abound during “Other Worlds,” a group exhibition of still life and landscape at Strecker Nelson West Gallery in Manhattan, Kansas. Featuring over 120 paintings, “Other Worlds” displays work by Michael Albrechtsen, James Borger, Aaron Morgan Brown, Kim Casebeer, Louis Copt, Debi Cox, Mark Flickinger, Clive Fullagar, Lisa Grossman, Rebecca Hoyer, John Hulsey, John Kuhn, Sharon McCoy, Susan Lynn, Devin Roberts, Chris Willey, and several others.

“Other Worlds” opened on April 7 and continues through May 20. To learn more, visit Strecker Nelson West Gallery.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.

Another successful year of the Cowgirl Up! National Art Exhibition & Sale recently wrapped up at the Desert Caballeros Western Museum in Wickenburg, Arizona. We’ve got a report of artists who took home honors and hardware. Who were they?

As should come as no surprise, the 12th Annual Cowgirl Up! National Art Exhibition & Sale was a resounding success, featuring 58 nationally acclaimed women artists and well over 1,000 patrons. Of the 58 artists represented, 51 attended the event, making this year’s event one of the most special.

Among the highlights of the festival were the Friday-evening Miniatures Sale and Cowgirl Roundup Street Dance, the Saturday-evening Bash & Bid Gala and Live Auction, and the Sunday-morning Chuckwagon Breakfast and Artist Quick Draw. The totals? Over $300,000 in art sales were realized this year, which will benefit both the participating artists and the Desert Caballeros Western Museum.

Ten different awards were presented by museum executive director Sandra Harris at the Bash & Bid Gala on March 25. The ever-talented Jill Soukup took home Best of Show honors for her painting “Tough & Tender.” The 2017 Director’s Choice New Artist award for body of work was presented to Tampa, Florida, artist Heide Presse; the honor guarantees Presse’s inclusion in Cowgirl Up! 2018.

Deborah Copenhaver Fellows of Sonoita, Arizona, received the Museum Purchase award. Her bronze sculpture, titled “When Horses Made Heroes,” will become a part of the Desert Caballeros Western Museum’s permanent art collection. Fellows also received Western Art Collector Magazine’s Award of Excellence for her body of work, and will receive a complimentary ad in Western Art Collector Magazine.

The Award for First Place Two-Dimensional on Canvas went to Nancy Boren of The Colony, Texas, for “Fast Track to Mustang Ridge.” Boren receives a complimentary ad in Art of the West Magazine, which sponsored the award.

For the third year in a row, the First Place two-Dimensional on Paper award went to Rox Corbett of Powell, Wyoming, this year for her charcoal on rag drawing “Buick and the Beast.” Sculptor Martha Pettigrew of Kearney, Nebraska, received First Place Three-Dimensional for her stainless-steel piece “Two Ravens.”

Shell, Wyoming, artist Ann Hanson was selected by her Cowgirl Up! peers for the highly respected Artists’ Choice award for her body of work; she’ll receive a complimentary ad placement from award sponsor Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. First-year Cowgirl Up! artist Jessica Gilbert, of Eagle, Colorado, received the People’s Choice award for body of work. Gilbert received a $1,000 gift certificate from Art Handlers Ltd, which sponsored the award.

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey will select the prestigious Governor’s Choice Award at a future date. This award will be presented to one of the 17 Arizona-based Cowgirl Up! artists. All the award-winning paintings, drawings, and sculptures will remain on exhibit throughout the run of the show, which ends on May7, 2017. Sales continue throughout the exhibition.

To learn more, visit the Desert Caballeros Western Museum.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.

Water does such amazing things to light and color — bending it, shaping it, and reflecting its visual spectrum of color. New works by this talented painter form a compelling solo exhibition that’s leaving viewers with a “wetted” appetite for more.

Davis Gallery & Framing in Austin, Texas, is excited to be presenting a solo exhibition this spring entitled “Water,” which features a new body of paintings by acclaimed artist Malou Flato. On view from April 15 through May 20, “Water” displays Flato’s elegant scenes of water, from delicate ripples to forceful flows.

“Over the course of her career,” the gallery writes, “Malou’s distinctive style has accumulated national acclaim. It is rare that an artist can move gracefully from dominating, large-scale canvases to more contemplative works. Bright pops of color are often amplified by subtle, muted washes and precise shifts between light and shadow. Malou’s newest series of paintings, Water, is expected to continue to impress.”

To learn more, visit Davis Gallery & Framing.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.