Dual Narratives by Mark Flowers opens this weekend at the Spiers Gallery located within the Sims Art Center at Brevard College. The show opens with a reception starting at 5:30 pm and will run through Feb. 16th.
The opening is free and open to the public.
Mark E. Flowers earned his BFA in Studio Arts from The University of South Carolina in 1977 and his MFA in Painting from Western Michigan University in1979. Following his academic career, he has exhibited his work throughout the United States and in Europe. Flowers’s work can be found in 28 public and over 300 private collections. Throughout his career, he has won numerous awards for his art in both regional and national competitions. In 1980, just out of graduate school, he was awarded the South Carolina Artist Fellowship Award. In 2003, he was named one of 100 Art Notable Alumni for the Centennial Celebration at Western Michigan University. Most recently, he was awarded a residency at through the Golden Foundation in New Berlin, NY.
His art teaching career parallels his art making. He has taught art at the secondary and college levels for 39 years. While he has been a teacher of art, he has also chaired two fine arts departments and one painting department. Mark is a career artist who lives his life creating art, teaching what he knows, and serving his community well. He maintains a strong exhibition record and is now more committed to making art than ever before. He currently is an adjunct teacher and a gallery coordinator at USC Upstate in Spartanburg, SC, as well as a maker of paintings.
In 2004, he and Kristy Higby, his life-long artist partner, purchased a hand-made log cabin just north of Asheville, NC in the community of Alexander. They have spent the last several years renovating the cabin and in 2009, built a large studio on the property. In the summer of 2014, they relocated permanently to the property they affectionately call “Mountain Tea”.
Pablo Picasso once said, “The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”
“I have always made use of painting to understand my relationship with the world. My works are stories – small insights and reflections of my experiences,” said Flowers. “In seeking meaning in the world, I am sharing my story in hopes of making common connections with others… My work has a duality in meaning. I have a story to tell, but also the viewer can engage the work and read their narrative into it. I am interested in where the stories might overlap and the dialogue we may have around that.”
Examples of Flowers’s and Higby’s work can be found on their website at www.mountainteastudios.com or on their Facebook page, Mountain Tea Studios.
Spiers Gallery is a contemporary 1,500 square foot gallery located within the Sims Art Center on the Brevard College campus. Exhibitions in Spiers Gallery are ongoing throughout the year and include shows by Brevard College students and faculty members, as well as visiting artists from Western North Carolina and around the country. For more information about this exhibition, please contact Diane Pomphrey at 828-884-8188.