Valdese, NC – Rock School Arts Foundation will present the works of Steve Brooks and Danny Bernard in a new exhibition.
The exhibition opens on January 17 and runs through February 14, in the foundation’s galleries located inside the Old Rock School in Valdese, NC.
Steve’s work will be exhibited in Gallery I and the new Hallway Gallery. Danny’s work will be exhibited in Gallery II.
Artists’ Reception will be on Sunday, January 26, from 2-4 pm.
About Danny Bernard
Danny Bernard is a Burke Country native who has been creating art for most of his life. Art is a form of therapeutic expression that has kept him grounded for his 68 years. He attended college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he studied art, psychology and business.
In his earlier years, he focused on painting, sketching, stained glass and sculpture. He is inspired by artists such as Salvador Dali and Leonardo DaVinci.
At the age of 30, he started working with wood and spent several years perfecting the art of carving large totem poles and animals. Most recently, he prefers to use upcycled or scrap wood from furniture, excess lumber, or fallen trees to create bas relief carvings.
His work has been featured at the Catawba Greenway, the Old Rock School, local festivals, and several local stores and eateries.
Danny is retired from Lowes in Marion, NC and now fills his time creating art and enjoying his 5 children and 8 grandchildren with his wife, Sam Bernard.
A gallery of his work can be found on Facebook at Neboux Artworxs.
About Steve Brooks
As a child Steve Brooks spent much of his time outside in Georgia. Camping, planting beans, checking the cows, wandering through a field or a forest. His family moved to western North Carolina while still a boy. Instantly he fell in love with the High Country around Boone and Blowing Rock. Through Scouting, he spent many weekends on and around Table Rock and Linville Gorge. And signed up for as many hiking/camping activities as he could while in boarding school in Asheville. During the summer, while working as a guide in a travel Camp that focused on backpacking and climbing in western North Carolina, he made his first watercolor paintings inspired by my mountain environment.
During college in Virginia, Steve spent hours on the banks of the Maury River with watercolor and paper attempting to capture the intensity of the experience. He spent hours in the library looking through almost every Art book in the collection. There he discovered Bonnard, whose work continues to influence his work. And he began looking at the work of Wolf Kahn.
In graduate school he switched to oil and became interested in color. Professors encouraged him to study the work of Cezanne and other Post Impressionists.
Painting intermittently for the next twenty years, Steve focused on a career in furniture design; but he always had a painting on the easel. The millennium sparked a surge in painting, and this is when the tree series began.
Steve likes trees, but this series is really about light and its interruption. The tree becomes a tool to slice up the space used in the composition. He wants the viewer to experience the painting in the same way he has, watching the sunrise through the forest.
Recently, Steve started to paint images of rocks and water. Again, taking on the opportunity to explore light, reflection, and space. He is unsure where all this exploration will lead, but it is work he enjoys and is delighted to share.
