On February 16, 2013, the Academy Art Museum will open three new exhibitions featuring artists with ties to the Eastern Shore. The Art of Greg Mort: Selections from the Hickman Bequest, will be on display February 16 through March 31, 2013. In 2011, David H. Hickman, an Easton-born, Washington DC resident, generously donated over 30 paintings by Greg Mort to the Museum to make it the largest public repository of the artist’s work. This exhibition, which includes a selection of paintings and drawings, draws from the Hickman gift as well as some preliminary drawings that were donated by Greg Mort to enhance the collection. Greg Mort an internationally acclaimed, self-taught artist hikes the rugged coast of Maine and travels the rural trails of Maryland with his brushes, paints and canvases. Drawing and painting since childhood, Mort’s professional art career star began to rise at an early age with his first museum show at 18. His watercolor, oil and pastel images are in notable collections around the world.
The second exhibition, Contemporary Realists: The Art of David and James Plumb, will be on display February 16 through April 28, 2013. David G. Plumb graduated from the University of Virginia with a BFA (1968). He moved to Talbot County, MD, to teach drawing and painting at the Academy Art Museum, previously known as the Academy of the Arts, while winning top awards in the Annual Juried Show (1970, 1982), exhibiting in the Maryland Biennial, Baltimore Museum (1976, 1978, 1980), and in group shows in New York City. He has been affiliated with the George Ciscle Gallery in Baltimore and Hollis Taggart and David Adamson Galleries in Washington, DC. James Plumb received his BFA from the Philadelphia College of Art and graduated with an MFA from Brooklyn College (1984). He was one of 20 individuals selected from worldwide applications, to attend the prestigious postgraduate studies at the Amsterdam-Maastricht Summer University (2001). James draws on the visual heritage of illusion and symbolism of the Old Masters of European painting. He feels that many of the concepts expressed through the visual relationships are just as valid today as they were back then. James Plumb served as curator of the Academy of the Arts in Easton (1978 – 1982). He serves as full professor in studio and art history courses at Chesapeake College. He has been represented by the David Adamson Gallery in DC, the Leslie Levy Fine Arts in Scottsdale, AZ, and had a one-man show at the South Street Gallery in Easton (2011).
The third exhibition, Katherine K. Allen Meditation on Nature in Paint and Stitch, will be on display February 16 through March 31, 2013. Allen loves talking to nature and her colorful artworks bring that conversation visually to life. With a vocabulary of lively gestural marks, abstracted botanical shapes and subtle textural stitching on cloth, Allen brings the outside inside. Her “soft paintings” are steeped in personal experience and the remembered atmosphere of the natural world, evoking landscapes that feel recognizable yet imaginary. In her studio gardens, surrounding woods and nearby wetlands, Allen grows and gathers the botanical materials used in her creative process. She holds a BFA from the University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, and an MFA, from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI. She worked as a graphic designer, registrar, curator, art instructor and has worked since 1996 as a full-time professional studio artist. Her career has taken her all over the United States. From 1990 to the present, Allen has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions from Easton, MD, Pittsburgh, PA, to Stanford, CA. She regularly works on site-specific commissions and has artwork in public and many private collections. For her exhibition at the Academy Art Museum, she specially created a set of The Four Seasons, as well as a large vertical “soft painting” spanning over two floors in the Atrium Gallery. Also included will be the mythological themed Icarus, from her early career, as well as a number of recent fiber creations. She resides in Easton and Florida, with her husband David.
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