Greensboro, NC

Barbara Campbell Thomas's work combines painting with quilting, overlaying their material vocabularies to create complex formal dialogues within each painting that resonate with the details of her own life and the history of each medium. She came relatively late to quilting, which she learned from her mother, but quickly realized its power as an art form traditionally practiced by women to inform and expand the range of painting.

collection type = AsArtist01

Carrboro, NC

Ben Alper is an artist based in Carrboro, NC. He received a BFA in photography from Mass Art in Boston and an MFA in Studio Art from UNC - Chapel Hill.  Alper’s work has been shown widely, including in exhibitions at the Nasher Museum in Durham, NC, at Glass Box in Seattle, Transmitter Gallery in Brooklyn, S1 Gallery in Portland, OR, Higher Pictures in New York, Schneider Gallery in Chicago, the Luminary Center for the Arts in St. Louis, Osnova Gallery in Moscow and Camera in Cluj, Romania. Additionally, his work has been published in Time Magazine, The British Journal of Photography, California Sunday Magazine, The Wire, Conveyor Magazine and Dear, Dave.  Alper has also published six books in the past six years and is the co-founder of A New Nothing, an online project dedicated to hosting visual conversations between artists. He is also ⅓ of Sleeper Studio, a publishing project working with photography, design and text.

collection type = AsArtist01

Durham, NC

Currently the Professor of the Practice of Art at Duke University, Beverly McIver is widely acknowledged as a significant presence in contemporary American art.  Charting a new direction as an African American woman artist, she is committed to producing art that consistently examines racial, gender, social and occupational identity. McIver’s autobiographical paintings are richly colorful and chronicle her life struggle with her African-American identity. Her 2020 self-portraits and paintings of family and friends confront her feelings and fears of the chaos and isolation brought on by a pandemic while battling racial injustice.  Her voice in these works is loud, unapologetic, brave and bold and the different interpretations by white and black viewers highlights the collision of the worlds that she straddles daily.

collection type = AsArtist01

New York, NY

For nearly two decades Bill Sullivan’s work has been part of a diverse program of artistic production ranging from photographic media, print making, painting, design, installation and book making. He is known for his tennis court related works, as well as his re-interpretations of image archives of various genres. Much of his work has centered on the creation of unique photo and digital based image surfaces. Sullivan has worked closely with the publisher S U N to produce a series of image-based books structured as something between graphic novels and catalogs. These books include the internationally acclaimed Forest Hills (2014) a book that follows the 20th century history of tennis and art confusing and conflating their stories to create a new kind of visual history. Sullivan has produced at least a book each year since 2014 including The Black Panther Coloring Book {with Corey Presha} (2014), Reckless Spring (2015), Letters of People (2016), Permanent Fun (2017), Pure Country (2018), Self Portraits with Mirrors (2019), and Major Force Vol 1: 2007-2011(2020). Sullivan was awarded a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship for photography. His work has been exhibited internationally and is part of major collections including The ICP, The Met, and MOMA. He currently lives and works in New York City. 

collection type = AsArtist01

Kinston, NC

Brandon Dudley grew up and currently works in Kinston, NC where he specializes in portraiture. Inspired by Hip Hop, Urban Fashion, and Art History, Dudley's work explores the issues of race, gender, and equality.  Through his portraits, Brandon strives to construct empowering representations of black culture and black history educating people by showing an appreciation for a culture that is negatively perceived.  Dudley attended Miami International University of Art & Design and Pitt-Community College and his work has been in North Carolina group exhibitions in Charlotte, Raleigh, Kinston, Greenville and Winterville.

collection type = AsArtist01

In 2003, artist Chris McCaw began photographing the sun with hand made cameras and paper negatives. The resulting body of work, Sunburn, tracks the sun's movement across the sky, often rendering elegant arcs and shapes depending on the camera's location on the planet, and the time of year the photograph was taken. The "sunburned" (or solarized) negatives are the result of the intensity of the sun's light and the magnification of the camera's lens. They speak elementally about time, light and our reliance on the sun, but also speak more metaphorically about photography itself. Taking from the etymology of the word "photography", Chris McCaw has created a series of "light writings" that are as beautiful as they are awe-inspiring. 

collection type = AsArtist01

Durham, NC

Dan Gottlieb’s studio practice is photo-generated work that investigates the subjective boundaries between environmental disruptions and human dislocation. With four decades experience creating cultural spaces and environments for art in the public realm, he applies a similar approach to his art: “I now focus my creative life on personal perspectives that convey a subjective, often ‘blurry’ aesthetic to depict nature and the human condition void of edges or boundaries. Visual ambiguity and mystery are core to my picture-making, as are a deep interest in physical and environmental sciences and the material process of picture making.”

collection type = AsArtist01

Raleigh, NC

David Molesky is an artist whose oil paintings explore our relationship to the sublime forces of nature. He is interested in the psychology behind the creative process and experiences of awe, as well as the magic of paint—how a goopy amorphous substance can be transformed into illusionistic images capable of arousing empathy and contemplation.

collection type = AsArtist01

Chapel Hill, NC

Martiny works with paint, color, and form; elements from the history of painting often referring to color or manner of paint application from diverse areas on the art-historical timeline. His current exploration is in the presence and power of gesture made to exist forever in the present. These massive brushstrokes offer a potent exchange inviting the viewer closer, even inside the work. The intimacy is instantaneous and intensely visceral. His paintings are not depictions of an experience. Rather they are the experience.

To commission works by Donald Martiny, please contact Artsuite.

collection type = AsArtist01

New York, NY | Edenton, NC

Contemporary artist Jack Early was born in Raleigh, North Carolina and graduated from North Carolina School of the Arts. His ascent to fame began in the late 1980s as one-half of the duo Pruitt-Early with artist Rob Pruitt.  Early seems never to have left his childhood; his playful wit and openness are the foundation for his work.  Early’s lexicon is drawn from wondrous childhood memories, where ordinary things and events can leave long-lasting impressions.   Aware of how visual and auditory phenomena can trigger us, he composes experiences to communicate sweet remembrances of simpler times.

collection type = AsArtist01

Brooklyn, NY

Jason Stopa received his BFA from Indiana University and his MFA from the Pratt Institute. He is a curator and a frequent contributing writer for Art in America, The Brooklyn Rail, and Whitewall Magazine. He teaches at Pratt Institute and the School of Visual Arts.  Stopa's works on paper deconstruct the signified object into the painterly, the felt, the tasted. His marks run the gamut from loopy, gestural strokes, to wiry ropes of paint tracing geometric forms, to small illusionistic details. They reference ubiquitous brands as well as private narratives.

collection type = AsArtist01

Wilson, NC

With Bachelor degrees in Art History and Studio Art from UNC Wilmington and an MFA from UNC Greensboro, Jeff Bell serves as the Arts Innovation Coordinator for the city of Wilson, NC where he currently resides. Bell’s work evolves by gathering everyday objects, deconstructing them, and creating sculptures from those elements. He ultimately aims to discover something new, but also something that reflects its previous language: a sculpture that at first glance reaffirms assumptions of commonplace objects but at further examination resists those notions and lives outside of his understanding.

collection type = AsArtist01

Joy Drury Cox is an artist and educator living in Carrboro, North Carolina. She has exhibited nationally and internationally since 2003 and is the author of three artist books: Stranger, Old Man and Sea, and Or, Some of the Whale. In 2019, her work was included in the Atlanta Biennial, and her most recent solo exhibition, Prone and Plumb, opened in March of 2020 at Asphodel Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Her works are included in various private and public collections, including the New York Public Library and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

collection type = AsArtist01

Richmond, VA

Leigh Suggs was born in Boone, North Carolina and currently resides in Richmond, VA. She received her BFA from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 2003 and her MFA from the Virginia Commonwealth University in 2015. Her work is a part of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and Weatherspoon Museum collections and corporate collections, including the Federal Reserve Bank, Honeywell, Capital One, Markel Corporation, Truist Bank and Fidelity Investments.

Suggs channels her fascination with the mystery and psychology of sight through cut paper works and large-scale installations. She obscures normal perception, manipulating her materials as if optical illusions. By cutting and weaving intricate patterns, she animates an array of materials, including reflective silver mylar, painted Yupo (a thick, plastic-based paper), and ink. The intangible and inexpressible optical illusions created in each piece lure in the viewer, pulling them into an experience of seeing that is at once immediate and elusive.

collection type = AsArtist01

Drawing from the Minimalist tradition, Lori Cozen-Geller makes sculptural works in a paired down formal vocabulary. Although she diverges from her predecessors, looking beyond the purely physical materiality and optical experience of the sculpture to symbolic and iconographic territory. 

collection type = AsArtist01

Durham, NC

Martha Clippinger is an artist based in Durham, NC. She received her BA from Fordham University and her MFA from Mason Gross School of Art, Rutgers University. Clippinger has had recent solo exhibitions at Elizabeth Harris Gallery in NYC, at Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, at Institute 193 in Lexington, KY, at Hodges Taylor in Charlotte, at SECCA in Winston-Salem, and at The Columbus Museum in her hometown of Columbus, Georgia. She has also been a resident artist at the MacDowell Colony, the Edward Albee Foundation, and the Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation and has taught workshops at Penland School of Craft. Her work is in public collections, including the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Duke University, and The Columbus Museum. Clippinger is represented by Elizabeth Harris Gallery in New York and Hodges Taylor in Charlotte.

collection type = AsArtist01

Raleigh, NC

Martha Thorn received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a concentration in Graphic Design from Western Carolina University and began painting in 2007. Her work has been exhibited at GreenHill, The Carrack Modern and other venues throughout the Southeast.  Utilizing her background in graphic design, Thorn is a process painter starting with line and drawing, followed by texture and design, and color being layered on last.  The bold colors are used as vehicles by which she can persuade her audience to look at her work. In her bright and captivating work, she presents the dichotomies of chaos and peace, dirty and clean, and ugliness and beauty in a fresh and authentic way.

collection type = AsArtist01

Matthew Brandt's work builds on the work of generations of landscape photographers and the history of the photographic process. He makes pictures using the physical matter of the subject in the development process, creating one-of-a-kind prints with methods that make it nearly impossible to create duplicates. 

collection type = AsArtist01

In the series Sun Land, Melanie Schiff exhibits her devotion to creating works that convey temporal and intuitive sensibilities; “Lemon Tree” is the epitome of the artist’s experiential approach to making photographs as they rely on the camera’s inherent inability to record, whether through distance or wavelength, what one can sensorially experience.

collection type = AsArtist01

Durham, NC

As a visual artist and chef, Michael Perry is constantly emerging and re-emerging. Being self taught in both fields has presented both freedoms to explore and obstacles to overcome.

The series of work being presented by Artsuite is based on a pointillist and primitive style. Perry has always been fascinated by the painted, copal wood carvings of Oaxaca (Alebrije) and the intricate bead and thread work of the Huichol tribes in Mexico. Growing up in the Navajo and Hopi region of the southwest he took inspiration from the intricate mandalas of the sand paintings - the sand being nature's pointillist tool.

After being introduced to Manfred Schwartz's work of the 1960's at Etretat in France, Perry felt liberated. His earlier work had been primarily representative landscapes. Schwartz's work opened up for him a personalized view of nature and the environment. Perry's style and intensification became more abstract.

In a world that is complex and uncertain, Perry strives to create a point of stillness for the viewer - a moment of pause and respite.

collection type = AsArtist01

Hong Kong

Michael Whittle is an artist, lecturer and researcher in diagrammatology, the study of diagrams. He originally qualified and trained as a biomedical scientist, before changing subject to study fine art receiving an MA at the Royal College of Art.  His studio practice draws upon images, ideas, and data found in scientific research papers, and discussions with scientists about the concepts and motivations underlying their studies.

collection type = AsArtist01

Asheville, NC

Peter Glenn Oakley completed his first marble sculpture in 2005. His works are now held in both private and museum collections throughout the United States, and he has exhibited in many galleries and museums, including Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, North Carolina Museum of Art, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, and Telfair Museums. He grew up rock climbing, and worked his way through Appalachian State University doing stonemasonry and inscription work before turning to sculpture.

Oakley was a 2017-18 Visual Arts Fellow at Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and was a 2014 North Carolina Artist Fellow. 

To commission works by Peter Oakley, please contact Artsuite.

collection type = AsArtist01

Asheville, NC & Merida, Mexico 

Randy Shull was born in Illinois in 1962. His early development was nurtured by his father, a master carpenter and furthered through rigid training as a furniture designer at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester NY, where Shull received a BFA in 1986. Shull’s work has evolved naturally over time from furniture to painting and to the creation of large projects on an architectural scale that embody the intersection of art, architecture and design. In 2010, he co-founded Pink Dog Creative, a redevelopment of a former warehouse into a mixed-use space with 20 artist studios, two restaurants and retail shops. In 2015 and 2016, he designed and fabricated the Black Mountain College Museum + Art Center in downtown Asheville, NC. He operates a warehouse-size studio in Asheville and part of the year works out of his new studio in Merida. There, he is focused on creating large-scale paintings integrating Mexican hammocks.

collection type = AsArtist01

Carrboro, NC

Renzo Ortega is an artist based in Carrboro, North Carolina. He received a BFA in painting from the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes del Peru (1999), and an MFA in painting from Hunter College (2014). His work has been exhibited in solo and group shows in the United States and Peru, as well as commissioned for public art projects and community murals. Recent solo exhibitions at TW Fine Art in Palm Beach in 2022,  and LUMP Gallery in Raleigh, North Carolina in 2021. Ortega is also the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including a North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship, a Kossak Travel Grant and a Visiting Artist Residency at the Rubenstein Arts Center at Duke University.
 

collection type = AsArtist01

Nashville, TN 

Rob Matthews was born in North Carolina and raised in Mississippi and Tennessee. He received his BFA from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. Matthews examines themes of upheaval, power, and displacement.  Some of his subjects are heroes and others are villains. The remaining are caught in the middle.  His work is made with the intent to spend time considering historical events and the people that get lost in the shuffle of the ever-changing news cycle.

collection type = AsArtist01

South African artist Roger Ballen is one most influential photographic artists of the 21st century. His strange, provocative and psychological work, often depicting subjects in vulnerable and disturbing situations, blurs the lines between reality and fantasy and reverence and exploitation. Ballen is also notable for a hybrid aesthetic that brings together photography, drawing, painting, sculpture and collage into one cacophonous visual language that is entirely his own.

collection type = AsArtist01

Kyoto, Japan

Sangsun Bae is a Korean Artist living and working in Kyoto, Japan. A graduate of Musashino Art University in Tokyo, Bae studied for her Doctoral Thesis at Kyoto city University of the Arts, during which time she won a scholarship to study in London at the Royal College of Art. Twice selected for the prestigious VOCA art prize in Tokyo, she has shown internationally in New York, London and throughout Asia and is currently represented by COHJU Contemporary Art in Japan and Gallery Lee & Bae in Busan, Korea. Bae expresses herself through soft and graceful lines and interlocking curves.  By using organic forms, her work has a flowing elegance demonstrating complete abstraction.  This basic element in her work reflects the stoic style of expression that invokes ties to Buddhism.

collection type = AsArtist01

Sarah Anne Johnson's Arctic Wonderland emerged from an artist residency aboard a double masted schooner in the arctic circle. Using the images she created there as starting points for a number of mixed-media photographic works, Johnson's series comments on the sublime beauty of nature, it's inherent fragility and the irreparable damage that humanity has, and continues, to inflict upon it. In this context, wonderland has the dual meaning, referring to both the brilliant beauty of the landscape and the absurd notion of a utopian colonization of the natural world.

collection type = AsArtist01

Roswell, GA

Sarah Emerson's paintings and installations present viewers with highly stylized versions of nature that combine geometric patterns and symbolic archetypes to examine our cultural landscape. In her compositions, she distorts the physical laws that govern the real world because concepts like gravity, inertia, and locality do not govern our emotional perspective of the world. Emerson does not try to replicate nature or real space, instead she uses the familiar genre of landscape to explore the collective events and conditions that define our cultural landscape. In her career, she has worked on multiple painting series' and site-specific projects that use the ‘flatness’ of painting to explore themes that reflect on the fragility of life, the futility of earthly pleasures, and the disintegration of our natural landscape. As it is presented, painting can flatten events in time, space, and memory onto one picture plane allowing room for a reconciliation of otherwise incompatible states of being.

collection type = AsArtist01

Raleigh, NC

Shaun Richards is a painting and mixed media artist has lived and worked in Raleigh, North Carolina until recently when he relocated to Hamburg, Germany with his wife, Dr. Amanda Maples. He was born in Brunswick, Georgia, grew up in rural Southeast Virginia and attended UNC-Wilmington, where he earned a BA in art in 1999. Richards’ work has broadly focused on incentives, socio-economic issues, and political matters for the better part of a decade. He has described it as a focus on our complicity and responsibility for the world in which we live—particularly those institutions, and paradigms that define contemporary western society. He often combines collage/mixed media, stencils, and traditional painting methods contrasted with abstraction to impress upon the viewer these complicated issues in a way that is often ambivalent, yet layered. 

collection type = AsArtist01

Durham, NC

A resident of Durham, North Carolina, Susan Harbage Page is a conceptual visual artist with a background in photography and site-specific installation. She is an associate professor in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and also maintains a studio in Spello, Italy. Social justice issues concerning race, surveillance, and militarized borders have been the focal points of Harbage Page's research. Her work is extremely diverse in substance, form, and media and focuses on archives, considering how they shape our histories, whose narratives get included, and whose narratives get left out.

collection type = AsArtist01

Raleigh, NC

Tim Lytvinenko is a photographer and printmaker. With a background in computer science and 15 years as a fine art and documentary photographer, Tim explores ideas of what it means to be human.  Experimenting heavily with print processes and manipulating digital photographs, Lytvinenko creates emotional and detailed multi-media works on the subject of self. His recent work can be seen across the Raleigh skyline on the 66-foot-tall facade of The Dillon, at the 21c Hotel in Durham, and in private collections across the East coast and the South. 

collection type = AsArtist01

Durham, NC

William Paul Thomas is a visual artist based in Durham, North Carolina.  His work is centered on making images to record his life experiences and observations, with an approach that defies standard documentary practices. For over 10 years he has created intimate painted portraits of everyday people that he chooses as a way of recognizing their significance in his life’s path. In addition to painting and drawing, he also experiments with video and photography to capture idiosyncratic, abstracted depictions of love, joy and adversity.  He earned a BFA in Studio Art from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and an MFA from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

collection type = AsArtist01