Raymond Berry: January 2021

Essentials

For more than forty years, my landscape painting has investigated the concept of change and the themes of assertion and recovery of the landscape. Since the late seventies, almost all my work has some concern with water, either moving or still. My labors have always been disciplined by a direct approach with the observed landscape, painting without influence of photographs or even preliminary sketches. Over the years I have stretched the boundaries of size and scale in my work, sometimes working in small, conventional sizes to large and imposing canvases that are many feet in length. In the last four or five years, I have developed a much simpler approach to my working methods; working in small scale and then a larger dimension on panels that have very pleasant relationships of height to width: hollow doors.

Direct observation/participation serves my love of the physical in painting and my lifelong study of the land as realization: a direct experience of our true nature.

Backstory

Born December 3, 1946, Oakland, California

University of North Carolina 1975 M.F.A. Painting and Drawing

at Greensboro: studied under Peter Agostini, Ben Berns and Andrew Martin

University of Virginia 1971 B.A. Studio Art

Served as Chair of the Department of Arts, Randolph-Macon College from 1990-2005.

Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellow in 2003.

Recent exhibitions:

Fall 2010: The Faculty Exhibition, Randolph-Macon College
September of 2008: One-man show of recent landscapes at Main Art Gallery, Richmond.

“The Art of Teaching” White Canvas Gallery, Richmond, Virginia 2006

“Hand to Hand, Part II” (students of Peter Agostini and Andrew Martin), Green Hill Center for the Arts, Greensboro, North Carolina 2003-4

“Mapping a Common Wealth, Contemporary Artists in Virginia” Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, Virginia 2002

"The Virginia Landscape, a Cultural History" Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, Virginia 2000

Selected Public Collections:

Duke University

Randolph-Macon College

Burlington Industries

Jefferson Pilot Corporation

Hal McCoy Industries

Pella Window Corporation

Bank of America

Capitol One

Weaver Collection of UNC-Greensboro Artists

Raymond Berry

Articles and Interviews

Friday, January 1, 2021

Beautiful Chaos, Luck's Farm, December 31, 2020, Oil on Panel, 8"x 10"