Gayle Tustin’s upcoming exhibit “Ceramic Vessel Sculpture & Mixed Media Art” features her most recent red earthenware vessel sculptures using terra sigillata with oxide patinas, along with mixed media on painter’s canvases. “Tustin finds inspiration from her environment, long walks, dreams, and sketches from traveling. Books, conversations, trash treasures picked up from the street, gesture sketches, antique stores, and swimming are other sources. Sometimes her ideas are planned out in the sketchbook, but more often her process represents a spontaneous flow.”
Gayle works out of her home studio and has been a fixture in the Wilmington arts scene for 30 years. She is one of the original founders of No Boundaries International Art Colony that happens annually on Bald Head Island.
Click here to preview the work that will be available during her show.
About the Artist
Gayle Tustin was born in New Castle and grew up in Sharpsville, PA. She has been fascinated with art since early childhood, cutting up old wallpaper books and magazines for pasting into collage assemblages, to making mud pies in the backyard.
Penn State University laid the foundation for her ceramic work as well as Alfred University in NY, after initially completing an Associate Degree in business from Robert Morris University, PA. Tustin is the first person to graduate with honors in Studio Art from the University of North Carolina Wilmington in 1996.
She has participated in numerous artist colonies including Northern Macedonia, Spain, Germany, Brazil, and South Africa. She is responsible for helping to create the No Boundaries International Art Colony, a gathering of local and international artists that meet annually on Bald Head Island to make art.
Tustin has been commissioned for donor tile memorial projects in Wilmington by the Lower Cape Fear Hospice including “Celebration of Life I, II & III” and “Safe Passages”, as well as “Bountiful Life I – VI” in Whiteville. Her ceramic relief commissioned works can be seen in Raleigh at the NC State Bar Foundation, “ We are the People of North Carolina” and Novant Health in Winston-Salem, “With Compassionate Care” and “Landscapes from Memory”.
For more information about Gayle’s extraordinary art, read “Freedom, Fluidity, and Flow: The Life and Work of Gayle Tustin” by Fritts Causby in Wrightsville Beach Magazine, September 2023.
On view along with this exhibit will be “Poet’s Garden: New Paintings by Helen Mirkil” and “Intentional Camera Movement (ICM): Photography by Robert Beauchene”. These new shows by our featured artists will be on view from October 5 – November 19, 2023, with an opening reception on Sunday, October 8th, from 2-5pm featuring live music by solo jazz guitar, Roger Davis!
A Time to Mourn and a Time To Dance” [Ecclesiastes 3:46], Acrylic on canvas, 19″ x 24″
Helen will also be hosting an Artist Talk on Sunday, October 22 as well as a Poetry Reading on Sunday, November 12. Stay tuned for more details and times!
Click here to preview the work that will be available during her show.
About the Artist
Helen Mirkil moved from the Philadelphia suburbs to Wilmington in 2019. Along with their spacious studios at theArtWorks she and her husband are sinking down roots in North Carolina and enjoying being near her children and their families. Helen is a Certificate/BFA recipient from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Pafa) and the University of Pennsylvania. At Pafa she also completed an MFA.
Helen was awarded a British American Travel Grant from the Wales/Philadelphia Exchange for a two-month residency. Her Penllyn Series landscapes were exhibited at Walter Wickiser Gallery in NYC. Landscape painting also earned her the Valerie Lamb Smith Painting Residency as well as being twice awarded first prize in the Scenes of the Schuylkill Exhibition.
Works by Helen can be seen at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in NYC, Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art, Bryn Mawr College Library Collection, James A. Michener Art Museum, Villanova University Art Collection, University of Mary Washington Galleries, Monmouth Comprehensive School in Wales, U.K., Teaching Collection of PAFA, and Woodmere Art Museum.
On view along with this exhibit will be “Intentional Camera Movement (ICM): Photography by Robert Beauchene” and “Ceramic Vessel Sculpture & Mixed Media Art by Gayle Tustin”. These new shows by our featured artists will be on view from October 5 – November 19, 2023, with an opening reception on Sunday, October 8th, from 2-5pm featuring live music by solo jazz guitar, Roger Davis!
“The Idea” Photography by Robert Beauchene
The gallery is excited to show new work by photographer, Robert Beauchene, in the upcoming exhibit “Intentional Camera Movement (ICM)”
Unlike many ICM photographers who choose to retain the recognizable forms and subjects of their photos – simply “blurring” fairly traditional subjects (like landscapes, wildlife, portraits and street scenes), Robert Beauchene centers his attention on light – it’s shape, tone, texture and intensity. The results of this approach are images that are often absent of any recognizable form but are full of interesting lines, colors and patterns. Think abstract expressionist painting – but with a camera. As with any photographic technique, Beauchene utilizes light, location, camera settings, etc. to intentionally arrive at a pre-conceived “vision”. In other words, these photos are not “accidents” – they are the result of careful planning and the precise use of the tools at hand. All of his images are created in camera with very little, if any, post processing or digital manipulation of any kind.
On view along with this exhibit will be “Poet’s Garden: New Paintings by Helen Mirkil” and “Ceramic Vessel Sculpture & Mixed Media Art by Gayle Tustin”. These new shows by our featured artists will be on view from October 5 – November 19, 2023, with an opening reception on Sunday, October 8th, from 2-5pm featuring live music by solo jazz guitar, Roger Davis!
Click here to preview the work that will be available during his show.
About the Artist
Robert Beauchene is a lifelong photographer and musician originally from Poughkeepsie, NY. His black & white work can be seen throughout the area under the brand CAPE FEAR NOIR and his abstract work has received international recognition. He also builds custom furniture! He lives in Wilmington with his wife, Polly.