Author Archive

Artwork by Clarence Mayo & Joan McLoughlin

Art in Bloom Gallery is celebrating this holiday season through its Annual Holiday Show, featuring the powerful exhibits of mixed-media painters Clarence Mayo and Joan McLoughlin! Combining bold colors with unconventional materials, Clarence’s playful creations draw from instinct, cultural echoes, and his own personal roots. Meanwhile, inspired by the renewal of nature and the energy of abstraction, Joan works freely to express a love of life, imagination, joy and hope. 

Join us in the gallery on Sunday, November 9th, 2-5pm for our Holiday Show Reception! Enjoy special refreshments, meet our artists, and enjoy live music by guitarist Miles Moore! Delight in the discovery of our 30+ Gallery Artists’ new holiday creations, and shop for one-of-a-kind gifts that are sure to bring smiles all year-round!

Click here to preview the works on display!

Clarence Mayo: “The Evolution of Identity: Defining Myself”

My work explores the interplay of strong colors, textures, and unconventional materials. I experiment with plaster, drywall compound, silicone acrylic chalk, modeling paste, wallpaper adhesive, acrylic paint, oil stick, and cold wax and oil – applied with whatever tool feels right in the moment: brushes, palette knives, credit cards, plastic bags, fingers, spoons, and forks.

These studies often emerge as intuitive, primitive, childlike, and abstract expressionist. They reflect a deep curiosity about form and surface, while drawing inspiration from African art symbolism, outsider art, and my own family history. Each piece is a layered exploration of material and memory, shaped as much by play and instinct as by cultural echoes and personal roots.

Joan McLoughlin: “Awakening”

My paintings are celebrations of color, movement and emotion. 

Inspired by trees, flowers, and the energy of abstract form, I work in a loose, lively style that embraces freedom and spontaneity.

Through variations of size and vibrant hue, I wish to express growth, rebirth, and new beginnings. Each canvas is a reflection of the heart, an exploration of optimism and possibility.

I invite viewers to feel the same sense of love of life, imagination, joy and hope that can be found in my paintings.

Virginia Wright-Frierson “Bryce Canyon Late Afternoon” Oil on canvas, 49″ x 36″

Art in Bloom Gallery is collaborating with Thalian Hall Center for the Performing Arts to present the paintings of Virginia Wright-Frierson! Discover Virginia’s painted scenes across the 2nd Floor Lobby and Ruth & Bucky Stein Theatre.

The exhibit will be open daily from 12-5pm, January 10th – March 26th at 310 Chestnut St. Preview the works online at: https://aibgallery.com/product-category/thalian-hall/

About the Artist

Virginia Wright-Frierson has made Wilmington, North Carolina her home for over 40 years.  She travels extensively for inspiration for her painting and frequent visits with family across the United States.

She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, with additional training at the Arts Students’ League in New York City and the University of Georgia Studies Abroad Program in Cortona, Italy.  Virginia has lectured and taught many workshops and classes in painting and drawing and on illustrating children’s books.

She is widely known for her design and construction of the Minnie Evans Bottle Chapel and Sculpture Garden at Airlie Gardens in Wilmington, a structure built with mortar and thousands of glass bottles, inspired by the art of the visionary artist who worked in the garden for many years as a gatekeeper.

In 2000, Virginia donated the sweeping mural which is permanently installed on the ceiling of the new atrium at Columbine High School after the tragic shootings there.  It is comprised of twenty painted panels which lift the eyes to a perspective of a Colorado forest of evergreens, aspen and sunlight.

She has written and illustrated many children’s books, including three John Burroughs Nature Book Award winners:  A Desert Scrapbook, An Island Scrapbook, and A North American Rain Forest Scrapbook.

Her most recent work has included a one-person exhibition of 120 road trip oil paintings at the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, a “pop up” exhibit of new oils and watercolors at 216 N. Front Street sponsored by Art in Bloom Gallery, and a Cameron Art Museum exhibit, “The Lived-In Body, Celebrating Women Over 65.”