WILSON, N.C. — October 17, 2024 — Artist Susan Fecho’s “No Thought of Time” exhibition is currently on view at the Arthur S. DeBerry Gallery for Botanical Art & Illustration, located in the Pegg Exhibit Hall of the North Carolina Botanical Garden, through December 20.
A reception for the artist and exhibition will be held on Sunday, Nov. 3, from 2-4 p.m. There is no charge for the event, and the community is invited to attend.
Fecho is a professor of art in the School of Arts and Humanities at Barton College and a renowned artist of regional, national, and international recognition. Working from collected specimens – fragments of nature and found objects, she has produced landscapes that simultaneously celebrate nature and reference civilization. Progressing from realism to the abstract, using textural layering, collage, muted values, she aims to create subtle tones of “place memory” where discontinuous times and places become interactive. To study nature’s repeating patterning and texture requires focused attention and awareness of universally attractive forms.
Fecho uses intentional and chance methods to record nature and to understand that nature does not transcend culture, nor do the traces of the human within the land. This exhibit began with a series of small woodblocks and lino blocks that she developed and then repeated to a larger scale by printing on toned washi paper, then collaged all together, and augmented with watercolor, gouache, and silverpoint pieces.
About the Artist —
Susan Fecho specializes in multi-media printmaking, surface designer, and illustration. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from East Carolina University and a certificate in Botanical Art and Illustration from the North Carolina Botanical Garden, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Fecho has exhibited nationally, and internationally – and has received numerous awards, grants, and residencies. Born in Virginia and a long-term resident of North Carolina, Fecho is connected to “place,” and has a deep appreciation for the natural world of North Carolina, her home. Her images have been accepted into several major collections: the Smithsonian Institution’s American Art Museum, The Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Museum of Women Artists in Washington.
Fecho’s work is inspired by the natural world, while also responding to the vernacular. The focus of her work is often a result of locational surroundings along the winding roads of the Tidewater regions to Appalachia. These sites are filled with sensory experiences that include historic vernacular and indigenous botanicals.
She has developed an abiding love of interpreting the past as personal, archetypical, and cultural artifact. Before Fecho constructs a piece, she constructs its meaning – a story— a matrix of personal, cultural, and archetypal associations within which the assembled fragments will find their place. She imagines these fragmented surfaces, placed in space, informing, and concealing deeper meanings. Her multi-media methods include printmaking, fiber, illustration, and assemblage, which invite viewers to examine and engage with orchestrated expressive textures and forms. This includes the cultured landscape and history within its social context, such as the cultural units and spaces of these communities.
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Descriptions below of cover art image and Insert art image.
“Yucca blossom and white yucca moths”
Woven stone lithograph prints, printed on thin washi, and watercolor, gouache.
“Mirabilia”
Catalpa bignonioides and paper flower bougainvillea, (and bull snake)
Mixed media of relief print, collaged handmade papers, stitching, color pencil and gouache.
Location of specimens, Edgecombe County, NC
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