Community[
Jens-Peter Brask
Copenhagen, Denmark
COPENHAGEN,
DENMARK
You don’t have to be an art expert to know what you like — what pulls you in or lights you up. Even with his depth and breadth of knowledge and experience in the art world, Danish curator, collector and publisher Jens-Peter Brask says what he ultimately looks for is art...
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Chandra Johnson
Charlotte, NC
CHARLOTTE,
NORTH CAROLINA
There are the people who keep their fine china locked away in a cupboard… And then there’s Chandra Johnson, who uses hers on the daily, and runs it (and her silver flatware!) right through the dishwasher. Her rationale? What’s the point of having these treasures if not to enjoy them?...
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Branford and Nicole Marsalis
Durham, NC
DURHAM,
NORTH CAROLINA
Art can be many things to many people. For Nicole and Branford Marsalis, it’s personal. The Durham, North Carolina home the couple shares with their two daughters is filled with works that have a story to tell, shining a light on parts of their lives. One piece in particular provides...
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Charlotte Lucas
Charlotte, NC
CHARLOTTE,
NORTH CAROLINA
Never underestimate the potential of a vision to become reality. As an interior designer, Charlotte Harris Lucas says one of the most rewarding things about her job is seeing something that started as a mood board or sketch morph into a full-blown home or design that gives a family a...
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Barrie Benson
Charlotte, NC
CHARLOTTE,
NORTH CAROLINA
For many collectors, discovering and selecting art is a process that starts slowly. Maybe they buy work from artists they know or pick up a few pieces on their travels. Charlotte-based interior designer Barrie Benson’s first experience building a collection, on the other hand, was something altogether more intensive. Right...
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Branching Out
BRANCHING OUT: NORTH CAROLINA CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS INTERPRET NATURE | The Umstead, Raleigh, NC
EXHIBITION
"There is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright." — Henry David Thoreau
Over the past year, the power of the natural world became amplified as our...
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Scott Avett
Concord, NC
CONCORD,
NORTH CAROLINA
Hanging alongside a 17th-century painting in the Old Masters section at The North Carolina Museum of Art is “Julianne in Vain,” a striking chiaroscuro portrait North Carolina artist Scott Avett painted in 2009. The anachronistic placement is a recognition of the deep influence artists like Caravaggio have had on his...
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Beverly McIver
Chapel Hill, NC
PAINTING
“Artist Beverly McIver paints portraits that distill the emotions of a moment down to their essence. From the bright joy of the first bite of a summer peach to the bitter pain of hyper-visibility, racism and police brutality — she lifts the emotional veils from her subjects and connects...
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Jeff Bell
Wilson, NC
SCULPTURE
“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” To that much-quoted Benjamin Franklin aphorism, artist Jeff Bell might add: Yes, but at least you won’t be bored. In his early work as a sculptor, Bell was very much a planner, until he realized all that prep work left...
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Barbara Campbell Thomas
Greensboro, NC
PAINTING
QUILTING
Barbara Campbell Thomas refers to her art studio as a self-generating system, where failed paintings get cut up and pieced into new works. But the North Carolina artist (and associate art professor) also keeps another category of scraps that could be more accurately described as ‘mother-generated’: pieces of fabric...
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Martha Thorn
Raleigh, NC
PAINTING
For abstract artist Martha Thorn, diligence and dedication to her craft are paramount — but excessive planning is something to avoid. She prefers to paint intuitively, focusing on materials and the process of making, allowing meanings and underlying themes to reveal themselves slowly, sometimes after she has finished a piece....
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BA THOMAS
Raleigh, NC
PAINTING
In the life of an artist, the daydream of being part of an artist colony probably plays in heavy rotation at one stage or another: the supportive, creative, collaborative environment; fellowship with and inspiration from other artists; time and space to focus and create without the distractions and demands of...
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Brandon Dudley
Kinston, NC
PAINTING
North Carolina native Brandon Dudley comes from a long line of artistic minds. Though he might be the first in his family to work as a full-time artist, his father, grandfather and uncle are all creatives. “My grandfather, who I admire dearly, is the most creative person I know, says...
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Jordan & Paul Ferney
New York, NY
NEW YORK,
NEW YORK
What do you get when two people who each grew up with artist parents meet, fall in love and build a life together? The crazy-colorful, art-filled NYC home of Jordan and Paul Ferney. From her mother, Jordan learned clever ways to create cheery spaces without spending a...
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LOVE OVER RULES
HANK WILLIS THOMAS | Raleigh, NC
PUBLIC ART
What does it mean to let love break the rules we have in our lives? That is the question built into Artsuite’s inaugural project, LOVERULES — a new large-scale installation in Raleigh’s warehouse district created by conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas. Unveiled in October 2020...
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The Hudson Project
THE HUDSON PROJECT | Raleigh, NC
EXHIBITION
There’s something about Raleigh. Among the top 10 fastest growing cities in the US, being a college town among college towns has helped it cultivate an especially vibrant arts community. And now, a new bright spot downtown: The Hudson Project by Artsuite. Located at 319 Fayetteville...
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Marie Cox
Raleigh, NC
RALEIGH,
NORTH CAROLINA
When Raleigh resident Marie Cox began collecting art in 2013, she was an only child, or so she thought. Last year, more than any new art acquisitions, the discovery of hidden branches of her family tree — four siblings she didn’t know she had! — rocked her...
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Leigh Suggs
Richmond, VA
PAINTING
Here’s what I’m seeing, but tell me how you see it?
It’s the kind of conversation commonly overheard at galleries showing artist Leigh Suggs’ work — intricately crafted cut paper works that often double as optical illusions, 2D art that looks 3D depending on where you’re standing. Though her...
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William Paul Thomas
Durham, NC
PAINTING
Of the hundreds of portraits artist William Paul Thomas has painted, he says the large scale oil painting of his grandmother Carolyn Thomas is probably his favorite, and not just because it was selected by Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry to be featured in its annual Black Creativity exhibition. The affinity...
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Dustin Patrick Smith & Burton Buffaloe
Raleigh, NC
RALEIGH,
NORTH CAROLINA
A recent YouTube video for Raising Buffaloes, the family vlog Dustin Patrick Smith and his husband Burton Buffaloe launched this summer, finds the handsome Raleigh couple en route to “test drive an Alpaca.” What the less imaginative among us might call a tour of a local...
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Rob Matthews
Nashville, TN
PAINTING
An encounter with one of North Carolina-born artist Rob Matthews’ works can be curiously disorienting. In one way, you’re sure you’ve never seen anything quite like it before. But on the other hand, something about it feels familiar, making you linger a little longer as your brain tries to...
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Sangsun Bae
Kyoto, Japan
PHOTOGRAPHY
PAINTING
SCULPTURE
Among the reasons a person might uproot her life and move to another country — a job, school, love — 'there was a statue that made me cry’ is not high on the list of common explanations. But Korean artist Sangsun Bae does not take lightly such...
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David Agger + Kalah Espinoza
San Francisco, CA
SAN FRANCISCO,
CALIFORNIA
In the early stages of California couple Kalah Espinoza and David Agger's art collecting journey, proximity was paramount. For David, it began with on-the-job exposure to multiple genres of art while working at art auction house Butterfield & Butterfield. Even closer to home, he started collecting work...
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Jack Early
New York, NY | Edenton, NC
PAINTING
MIXED MEDIA
Picture this. You’re a young artist living in New York City in the early 90s. You’ve lived at the Chelsea hotel, worked as an assistant to painter and sculptor Richard Artschwager, and now you’re partnering with another artist to create genre-blending work combining...
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Anthony Goicolea
New York, NY
MIXED MEDIA
PAINTING
PHOTOGRAPHY
Originally from Marietta, Georgia, multi-disciplinary artist Anthony Goicolea describes his childhood growing up as “a gay Cuban Catholic boy in the South in the 70s” as “uniquely challenging.” As a talented art school grad who moved to New York in the 90s, he challenged himself to...
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Tift Merritt
Raleigh, NC
RALEIGH,
NORTH CAROLINA
Nothin fancy, Nothin fake / Nothin wasted and no deal to make / What you need is what you want to take / And what you take, you use. Though Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Tift Merritt was probably not writing about collecting art in her song Sweet Spot, those lyrics do...
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Michael Whittle
Hong Kong
PAINTING
MIXED MEDIA
What if the solution to a puzzle you’d been struggling to solve ended up being the METHOD you were using to solve it? Sounds strange, but that’s exactly how English artist and researcher Michael Whittle came up with the idea for his award-winning 2015 PhD thesis, which has since...
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Anna & Amir Barzin
Chapel Hill, NC
CHAPEL HILL,
NORTH CAROLINA
Collector and commercial photographer Anna Barzin has almost convinced herself that she’s not a real artist, but we have discriminating evidence to the contrary. To start, the way she captures light in her portrait work is beyond masterful. And from the ‘takes one to appreciate one’ category, in...
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Susan Harbage Page
Durham, NC | Spello, ITALY
PHOTOGRAPHY
PAINTING
A red blanket caked with mud. A child’s shoe, pink and white and filled with sand. These are two of the roughly 1,000 items included in the Anti-Archive of Trauma, part of artist Susan Harbage Page’s 13-year U.S.-Mexico Border Project. These objects tell the stories...
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Shaun Richards
Raleigh, NC
MIXED MEDIA
It’s not terribly uncommon for a one-day home improvement task to expand into a one- or two-week project. But it is rare that such a project would lead to a creative breakthrough that changes the focus of your career. Artist Shaun Richards would know. It was 2006 and he...
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Nick Olsen
New York, NY
NEW YORK,
NEW YORK
Nick Olsen's final project in architecture school was a media center shaped like a life-size wedding cake, complete with real icing and plastic columns. The in-person critique included words like ‘failure’ and ‘waste of a college education,’ but the silver lining was the push it gave him...
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Tim Lytvinenko
Raleigh, NC
PAINTING
MIXED MEDIA
Unlike the kids his age who were afraid of the dark, photographer and printmaker Tim Lytvinenko spent a good chunk of his childhood angling to spend more time in dark rooms. He took his first photography class in third grade and was fascinated by all of it, but found his...
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