Contemporary Tonalism – Exhibition on View at NC Wesleyan

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Start Time:
Friday, November 6, 2009 at 7:00pm
End Time:
Sunday, December 13, 2009 at 5:00pm
Location:
Mims Gallery at North Carolina Wesleyan College
Street:
3400 N. Wesleyan Blvd.

 

PRESS RELEASE 

Charles Philip Brooks

Contemporary Tonalism
November 6 – December 13, 2009

Mims Gallery
North Carolina Wesleyan College
3400 N. Wesleyan Blvd.
Rocky Mount, NC 27804

http://www.ncwc.edu/arts/mims/
Gallery Information: 252-985-5268 or e-mail eadelman@ncwc.edu

Charles Philip Brooks exhibits paintings at Wesleyan’s Dunn Center

The Mims Gallery is pleased to introduce the artist Charles Philip Brooks to the greater Rocky Mount community with his first gallery solo in Rocky Mount. Brooks’ exhibition titled, Contemporary Tonalism, opens with a reception party for the artist 7 p.m. November 6th in the gallery at Wesleyan College’s Dunn Center. The public is invited free of charge and encouraged to meet this new face in the art community and view his dreamy Romantic landscapes.

Charles Philip Brooks, born in North Carolina, studied in New England in the studio of highly respected Boston School authority Paul Ingbretson and with the renowned American Barbizon painter Dennis Sheehan. Primarily a landscape painter, Brooks focuses on the landscape of the southeastern United States, incorporating elements of impressionism while firmly rooted in the Barbizon Tonalist tradition of landscape painting. He likens his artistic vision with such Americans as George Inness and North Carolina’s own Elliott Daingerfield. Brooks has exhibited his paintings throughout the southeast and organized the 2009 Metamorphosis Project Exhibition at the Kinston Art Center and Artspace Richmond, exhibiting with with fellow painters Richard T. Scott, Adam Miller, and Jonathan Matthews. 

Brooks’ paintings are nocturnes and twilight infused subjects with subtle gradations of tone achieved with careful darkening glazes of transparent color and misty sfumato. In an encounter with one of Brooks’ Tonalist pictures, one can find either peace or apprehension of nightfall in soft glow and atmosphere of the day’s last light. The artist also paints Tonalist nocturnes where the familiar world is illuminated and made exotic by moonglow.

Brook’s Statement on Painting expresses his artistic view:

“The tradition of Tonalist painting is one of intimate and nuance-filled art. The aim of my predecessors has been to reach ever-heightening subtleties of form through the poetic rendering of nature. In this spirit, my work is a continuation of a century-old tradition of American landscape painting. Many of my paintings reflect humble subjects, which I return to often and work from with great care. My interest is in landscapes that remain largely untouched by modern development, but instead preserve the quiet aspects of the natural world. I paint the landscape of North Carolina because it is natural for a painter of landscapes to admire familiar places and to make them the foundation of his work.”

Brooks has opened an Atelier-style painting school at Rocky Mount’s Imperial Centre. His two-year course of study emphasizes traditional methods of oil painting, traditional 19th century techniques, and plein-air landscape painting.

The Mims Gallery is in NC Wesleyan College’s Dunn Center and is open free to the public from 9-5 Monday through Friday.

An Open Letter to the Student of Painting

A Letter to the Student of Painting 

Your day contains a great measure of freedom. Your responsibility as a painter is here within the walls of the studio and in the setting of the landscape. You have the opportunity to exercise genuine mastery at every step, and it is in this spirit of grand possibility that I hope you will reflect on the advice made plain here.

Do not grieve too long for the troubles of the outside world. There is important work to be done here. We can best express our care for all others by attending to our work well.

Allow yourself the peace of purpose and the knowledge that to make another attempt with the brush is a noble thing. If you accept the discipline of the truest principles of art, then yours is the reward of an unbroken line of tradition.

Therefore, you may earnestly free your mind of all heartaches, sadness, and transitory despairs. Creation is above these things.

Your vocation is as real and as true as any other. Those who denounce the artist as idle manifest a deep ignorance of the nature of art. Have faith that the civilized will somewhere, at some time, value your well-wrought works. It is a miracle that the world keeps its havens for art and yet it does. Know that to create art is to do a necessary piece of work. The most noble pleasures and measureless joys result from such endeavors. True art is undeniable and it is a gift for all humanity.

The threefold responsibility of the artist is: to creation, the individual talent, and to humanity. For creation, the whole of nature,  we must cultivate prayerful awe. This is our source of work and our refuge as well. We should seek harmony with nature. For the individual talent,  long hours and years of steady industry hope to find our abilities fulfilled, our minds, hearts, and hands put to valuable service. In this way, we maintain the sanctity of art. Lastly, we make to humanity a willing gift of all we do. Our control over the material world lasts only a lingering moment and it takes a generous soul to build the ambition of a lifetime and then to hand it over in trust to the future.

Painting requires the bravery of solitude. Painting requires disciplined labor. To be a painter is to search the world with a benevolent eye for every subtle beauty that theinfinite world offers.

Here is the opportunity to give your honest effort and to add in any small way to the legacy of art. Cultivate patience in your heart and you will improve. Learn to see well and your hand will become sure.

No pain or doubt can invade the honest soul engaged in the communion of creation. We artists must love the world with our deepest selves and forgive it at every turn.

To paint even a little passage with a measure of quality is to achieve a life’s triumph.

Spend your days wisely with the best thoughts and works of those who have walked the road before you. Search their paths, their timeless inspirations, and the lineage of their genius. Learn your craft well and your talent will mature into its full possibility. Keep an obedient heart before nature. She is the master above all other masters. Nature is the concrete manifestation of all that remains true and sublime. Let us always be thankful for her abundance and hopeful that we might approach her in our art. Nature will renew every generation of painters, ready to illuminate the minds of those who practice the art with what is calm, rational, beautiful, sublime, and eternal.

Such is the purity of your vocation. Treat every moment before the easel as a quick and tender opportunity. Invest your most noble self. Give your most noble self. To be a painter is to enjoy a precious state of life. – 2002

Imperial Centre Painting Studio / The Value of a Teaching Studio

For Immediate Release:

Contact:   Jennifer Rankin, Arts Education Coordinator

In January 2010, the Rocky Mount Arts Center will be accepting new students at its new atelier-style painting school. This two year course of study with noted North Carolina painter Charles Philip Brooks concentrates on preparing students for professional careers as artists. Emphasis is placed on traditional methods of oil painting, including making copies, and plein-air landscape painting. Students receive instruction in traditional 19th century techniques as well as practical advice for careers in fine art. Weekly lectures and critiques provide a continual context for student development, allowing each student to pursue his or her interests in the light of their appropriate art historical contexts. 

The program is unique, relying heavily on the practice of plein-air painting. Students develop stamina and discipline, painting many on-site studies from nature. Unlike seasonal schools or single workshops, our school emphasizes outdoor painting year round, encouraging students to study nature during each season. Demonstrations and discussions explore the works of painters of the classical, realist, romantic, and naturalist schools. Students will become familiar with the various movements and styles of landscape painting as they relate to the practices of working contemporary painters. Studio space is included to allow students the opportunity to work anytime the facilities are open. 

The cost is $1,200 per 3 month session. Sessions include studio space, weekly lectures, and critiques. The studio is housed in the landmark Imperial Centre for the Arts and Sciences. For an information packet please contact Jennifer Rankin at the Rocky Mount Arts Center.  

Rocky Mount Department of Parks & Recreation. 

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The Value of a Teaching Studio / Why Atelier Training is Worthwhile Education…

Atelier-style training is a worthwhile and practical education. In the teaching studio of a qualified artist (one whose techniques are desirable to learn and possible to market) students receive a combination of careful critiques, personal career-oriented attention, and time-tested technical advice. 

In an atelier or teaching studio, a working artist (usually an artist who is established enough to make a good living through the sale of their work) sees to the education of a small, select group of students. In this setting, there is a significant level of commitment on the teacher’s part towards the students’ future careers which is rarely matched in other environments. 

In my teaching studio, students progress from the making of copies of masterworks (to learn how other painters solve problems) to painting from life. These exercises continue and repeat, giving students an opportunity to dramatically improve their technique and observation from nature. My teaching relies heavily on the practice ofoutdoor (plein-air) painting during all seasons. In this way, students develop a keen ability for observation along with an appreciation of the myriad beauty and transcendent significance of nature. 

An appreciation for art history is integral to learning about various modes of realist, impressionist, naturalist, and classical art. I discuss painting with both a reverence for its history as an aesthetic experience (connoisseurship) and also as a proponent of traditional methods.

I am an advocate of art students studying in various ateliers during the course of their careers. The methods ofstudy I use with my students are not subject-specific to landscape painting, although American Impressionist and Tonalist landscape painting remains my current interest and area of focus. My teaching studio runs on atwo-year schedule, as opposed to the four or five years necessary in a figurative-based atelier. 

I pride myself on talking frankly with students about the business of art and about its viability as a full-time career. After helping refine their portfolios through years of study and attention, I am happy to help students approach galleries to exhibit their work. I have helped to found two exhibiting groups of significant contemporary realism, aided in securing commissions and exhibitions for other artists, and organized a variety of solo and collaborative exhibitions. As painter-in-residence at the Imperial Centre for the Arts and Sciences I take an active and practical interest in the creative life of the community. 

I have been privileged to have this type of education. I am committed to offering a similar course of study. In fact, I consider it as a vital part of my career as a painter.

Charles Philip Brooks

Love Bug: The Great Bug Draw Off

Where: 101 Lounge + Cafe
When: August 7th (Tomorrow) 7-10 PM
What: A bug drawing contest and exhibit. Proceeds benefit Toxic Free NC’s work.
Contact: (919) 833-1123
Web Site for More Info: http://www.ToxicFreeNC.org