The Shadow
LEWISBURG, W.Va. — Carnegie Hall’s March/April art exhibits are set to open Friday, March 1, with a reception for two of the three galleries
The reception begins at 5 p.m.
Carnegie Hall features three galleries, which display the works of regional artists for two-month shows.
This month’s exhibits feature works by Ginger Danz and Tatjana van Beckhoven Blakeslee, as well as Carnegie Hall’s 26th annual Creative Youth Art Exhibit.
“Horizons” by Ginger Danz will be featured in Carnegie’s Board Room Gallery.
Danz is a full-time artist living in Fayetteville, W.Va., in the heart of the New River Gorge. Having juried into Tamarack in 2010, she has exhibited her work throughout the area ever since.
The inspiration for her show “Horizons” comes from her sketch books filled with small abstract paintings, featuring horizon lines, tree-like shapes or other hints of the natural world.
The Horizons series of paintings felt like a fitting creative progression, exploring these themes on a larger scale and celebrating the vastness of the natural world in an abstracted way.
In addition to Tamarack, Danz’s work is on display in several West Virginia galleries and restaurants, including West Virginia Fine Artisans in Lewisburg, Art Emporium and Apart-ment Earth in Charleston, Cynthia Bickey Gallery and Top Knot Cafe in Beckley, and Cathedral Cafe in Fayetteville.
Her work can also be viewed at www.gingerdanz.com.
The Lobby Gallery will showcase work by Tatjana van Beckhoven Blakeslee, a talented Monroe County artist, who was born in Tilburg, the Netherlands, in 1941.
She remembers the German occupation and when she was three, she realized her love for painting when she drew a portrait of Beethoven with her older sister’s pencils, which she was supposed to leave alone.
In her adult life, she lived in Germany and France and traveled throughout Europe, eventually studying sculpture under Professor Vlad at the American University of Art in Paris.
After immigrating to the United States, she studied painting and sculpture at the Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Virginia, under Professor John Bannon. He taught by having the student copy an old master of the student’s choice, using the original oil medium. She chose Vermeer.
She graduated magna cum laude in 1984 and continues to copy Vermeer, along with doing her own original paintings of contemporary themes, mostly portraits.
In 1985, she studied art restoration at the University of Delaware.
In 1986, she attended the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Richmond, majoring in sculpture and minoring in painting and anthropology. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts in 1988.
The Old Stone Room Gallery will open Thursday, Feb. 28, and feature Carnegie Hall’s 26th annual Creative Youth Art Exhibit.
The art gallery features the talent and imagination of Greenbrier County students in grades 4-12.
There will be an awards ceremony and reception on Thursday, March 7, at 4:30 p.m. The exhibit closes March 24.
Carnegie Hall’s March/ April exhibits are on display March 1 through April 26. They are free and open to the public Monday through Friday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
For more information, please visit carnegiehallwv.org, call (304) 645-7917, or stop by the hall at 611 Church Street in Lewisburg, W.Va.
Programs in the Carnegie Hall 2018 season are presented with financial assistance through a grant from the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History and the National Endowment for the Arts, with approval from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts.
