Portraits by late Starkville artist to be featured at MSU gallery
Contact: Sasha Steinberg
STARKVILLE, Miss鈥擜n exhibition spanning the 60-year career of artist Carole McReynolds Davis will be open Sept. 6-Nov. 18 at 海角社区鈥檚 Visual Arts Center Gallery.
Titled 鈥淔igures and Faces Not Far From Home,鈥 the special university event features selections from an estimated 1,000 original works created by the local icon who died in 2014.
Free to all, an opening reception will be held 5-6 p.m. Thursday [Sept. 8] in the gallery at 808 University Drive. Refreshments will be served.
Representing the artist鈥檚 style from 1970-2008, the collection was brought together by Davis鈥 daughter, Elizabeth Williams, and Lori Neuenfeldt, gallery director of the sponsoring MSU Department of Art.
鈥淐arole鈥檚 love of people gave her the ultimate inspiration, and she created uniquely beautiful works of art that capture the beauty of Southern life,鈥 Neuenfeldt said. 鈥淢any of the portraits are of faces familiar to the Starkville and MSU communities.鈥
Neuenfeldt said Davis had planned to produce a book titled 鈥淣ot Far From Home.鈥 It would have included images of flowers and landscapes, as well as portraits and still lifes produced over the course of her seven-decade life. To help honor Davis鈥 dream, the proposed title was incorporated into the exhibition鈥檚 title, she added.
She also said students enrolled in her spring-semester introductory art course had studied Davis鈥 comments inscribed on the back of each painting. The products of their class research is found on panels accompanying the displayed pieces.
鈥淔igures and Faces Not Far from Home鈥 and related exhibition programs are made possible with support from MSU鈥檚 College of Architecture, Art and Design, home to the Magnolia State鈥檚 largest undergraduate studio art program. For more, visit .
Visual Arts Center Gallery hours are 12:30-5 p.m. Monday-Friday and 1-4 p.m. Saturday, as well as by appointment.
Neuenfeldt may be contacted at 662-325-2973 or LNeuenfeldt@caad.msstate.edu.
MSU is Mississippi鈥檚 leading university, available online at .