Calendar
Prev MonthPrev Month Next MonthNext Month
Karen Lee Crenshaw Portraits and Landscapes
Friday, May 24, 2019, 6:00 PM to Saturday, June 22, 2019, 4:00 PM EDT
Category: Events

The Burgwin-Wright House welcomes award-winning artist, Karen Lee Crenshaw, with an opening reception for her show "Portraits and Landscapes" on Friday, May 24, from 6:00pm-9:00pm.


Admission is free; this show will remain on exhibit through June 22.

About the artist:
Karen Lee Crenshaw has been drawing since she used to scribble on the walls as a child.” She earned a BS in Art Ed from Concord University and an MFA in Painting from George Washington University. Karen has lived in Jacksonville, NC, for nineteen years where she maintains Crenshaw Art Studio in her home and at ArtExposure in Hampstead, NC.

She has fallen in love with beautiful coastal North Carolina. Marshes, rivers, lakes, and the vessels that sail upon them capture her eye. Karen paints these scenes en plein air and in her studio. Several of Karen’s coastal landscapes were selected for reproduction in “Painting North Carolina, A Visual Journey, “by Kimberly Maselli. Her work joined those of 32 regionally and nationally known landscape painters who depicted the beauty of North Carolina from the mountains to the coast.

"A sense of place. That is the goal of my landscape paintings, for the viewer to ‘see’ what I am seeing and to feel that is a place they have been or would like to visit. Landscape painting, in particular, plein air painting, inspires me to capture the quality of the light that sets off that connection. Many of my paintings depict the pinkish-blue tones of early morning light or the amber tones of late afternoon. I love the contrasts of forms and oblique angles and shapes that occur when the sun is low on the horizon. My challenge is to capture that moment in time, working quickly and keeping a dynamic abstract pattern with energetic brush strokes.”

In addition to landscapes, Karen accepts portrait commissions, specializing in portraits of women and children. Her work is traditional and lifelike, yet it maintains a painterly quality. She enjoys providing clients with an heirloom that will last for many generations. In August and September, 2019, you will find her working on a NC Regional Artist Grant funded project, “Faces of Jacksonville,” where she will be working on a total of 30 portraits painted from live sittings at the Onslow Council for the Arts in Jacksonville.