HPU Sechrest Gallery showcases landscapes

By Ryan, October 7, 2015

By Liz Reichart, A&E Editor//

The High Point University campus is chockfull of hidden gems, but none so unseen as the Darrell E. Sechrest Gallery – host of art exhibitions that have showcased every medium, subject matter and countless artists over the years since its completion in 2004. Even rarer gems still await the viewer inside this gallery – some of the most exquisite art to ever grace the space’s walls – as part of the current exhibition running through Oct. 10, entitled “Sky Above Earth Below: Tradition and Transformation in Landscape.” Guest curator by Professor Richard Gantt, the gallery features, quite simply, depictions of landscapes. Although the subject is matter seemingly humble, the content of the gallery immediately proves to be anything but.
“The theme was selected in part because we wanted to tie-in with the Piedmont Plein Air Paint-Out event that took place in High Point Sept. 17-20. This event brought artists from around the country to paint outdoor landscapes and cityscapes in our town,” said Maxine Campbell, director of the Sechrest Gallery.
“We are so accustomed to thinking of landscape as being one of the most obvious subjects for artists that it may be difficult to imagine that this was not always its status,” said Gantt on the theme selection. The genre is essentially a creation of the early modern period.”
Once the theme was selected, the process of carefully selecting pieces for the exhibition began. Gantt and Campbell visited the home and viewed the collection of Randall Thomas Johnson. From Johnson’s collection, the duo was able to secure captivating pieces, but the work did not stop there. Gantt also visited the studio of current abstract painter, Nan Covert, in Virginia.
Some of the most exquisite pieces in the collection are those on loan from the Weatherspoon Art Museum of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro – a selection of modern and contemporary works by artists Ben Norris, Gertraud Brausewtter, Francis Speight, Nancy Graves and Jim Dine.
He then carefully and deliberately secured a wide selection of works meeting his initial criteria. “Gantt’s criteria were a high caliber execution and providing a range of work expanding upon our notion of ‘he landscape,’” said Campbell.
The process of curating the exhibition, Gantt said, was a rewarding one.
“For me, the process was both extremely interesting and great fun,” he said. “The great news about this exhibition from the point of view of the Sechrest Gallery is that we have a large number of participants included. The Weatherspoon has lent works, as have private collectors, and artists as well. We will also be showing some works, truly beautiful nineteenth-century paintings, from the Darrell E. Sechrest permanent collection here at High Point University. I could not be happier or have wished for a more rewarding experience than getting to work with these individuals and institutions in bringing the exhibition to realization.”
Gantt received his associate degree from Wingate College and his Masters of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he now teaches in addition to being an adjunct professor at HPU. His area of study is architecture, landscape and urban design in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
“Given the widely varying interests that artists pursue and the greatly expanded areas of possible approaches for expression in our time, we find an extremely lively expanse of visual creation from which we have made our selections for ‘Sky Above Earth Below: Tradition and Transformation in Landscape,’” said Gant. “In this exhibition, an extensive span of creative involvement with landscape is well represented through a wide range of media, movements and artistic engagements.”
As to his favorite piece in the exhibition, Gantt could hardly pick just one from such an array of periods, styles and expressions, but did detail one piece with a personal resonance.
“The Weatherspoon has lent us a painting, “Belmont Hills”, by the American Impressionist Francis Speight,” Gantt said. “In my earliest college years as a student, I heard Mr. Speight lecture and show some of his works and that was a formative event in my education in art. So, you see that I have strong connections with the painting and its artist, however, “Belmont Hills” stands entirely on its merits as a wonderful painting.”
Gantt challenges students to find an emotional connection with pieces of their own in the gallery.
“Our exhibition has such variety, it would greatly surprise me if our visitors did not find other favorites,” he said.
Sky Above Earth Below: Tradition and Transformation in Landscape” will be on display in the Sechrest Gallery through Oct. 10.