An exhibit of work by abstract painter Connie Fox, will open Monday, September 2, in the University of Lynchburg’s Daura Gallery. The exhibit, which runs through Friday, December 6, also features figurative sculptures by Fox’s late husband, William King.
An opening reception will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. on September 2. Admission is free and the public is welcome.
“Connie Fox’s paintings are allusive,” exhibit curator Dr. Barbara Rothermel said. “Thoughts, dreams, movement are transformed into atmospheric paintings that are simultaneously abstract and pictorial. Yet to follow the path of Connie’s brush is to encounter the expanse of sky and the sea of her Long Island home, and to feel the flow of the brush and the bursts of color of profound emotions.”
Fox was born in Colorado in 1925. She is a 1947 graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder. She studied at the Art Center School in Los Angeles and did graduate work and taught at the University of New Mexico. She considered the abstract expressionist Elaine de Kooning (1918-1989) a mentor and friend.
Fox’s work can be found in the collections of the Albuquerque Museum, Brooklyn Museum, National Museum of Women in the Arts, and numerous other galleries.
King, who died in 2015, was born in Florida in 1925. He attended the University of Florida and graduated from The Cooper Union, an art school in New York City. Among other things, he studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and was a Fulbright scholar in Italy.
His work is in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum of Art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and many other places.
The title of the upcoming exhibition, “into the outer reaches of a more golden land: The Paintings of Connie Fox,” is taken from a poem, “Heartland,” written by Fox’s daughter, Megan Chaskey. In conjunction with the exhibit, Chaskey and her husband, the poet Scott Chaskey, will do a poetry reading in October. The exact date for the reading has not been set.
Also, on Saturday, October 26, from 9 to 11 a.m., the gallery will offer a children’s workshop in color field painting. The workshop will be led by Laura Cole ’17, ’19 MA, the Daura’s academic and public engagement coordinator.
“Color field painting is something that goes along with abstract expressionism and is basically just filling the space with color in different ways, whether that is with shapes, lines, or just filling space,” Cole said.
“The kids will be learning a little bit about that, with a story, but more just focusing on color and using the galleries for inspiration before creating their own small painting.”
The workshop is free and there is no need to sign up in advance. For more information about the exhibit, workshop, or other Daura Gallery programming, please contact Cole at 434.544.8595 or dauragallery@lynchburg.edu.
