“Spirit People”
Cason Rankin’s “Spirit People” will be featured at Art Works Brevard from September 1-30. Art Works is located at 27 S. Broad St., Brevard, NC. Hours are 11 am-5 pm Tuesday through Saturday. The public is cordially invited to a reception on Friday, Sept. 23, 5:30- 8 pm, during which Rankin will demonstrate development of her semi-abstract spirit figures.
Before coming to Asheville, Rankin had a distinguished career as a watercolor artist, including awards for excellence at national and regional shows, publication of her art in national watercolor magazines and books, invited exhibitions, and service on governing boards of state and national watercolor societies.
“I always enjoyed the fluid drips and runs of watercolor,” says Rankin. “But after years of experience with this delicate, romantic medium, I felt a desire for more depth, drama and strength in my paintings.” Two years ago, she met Cashiers artist Karen Weihs, who introduced her to palette knife application of another water medium, acrylics, to a different support, canvas.
“I haven’t painted with watercolor since,” Rankin says. “Acrylics can produce the same drippy, runny, spontaneous effects I enjoyed working in watercolor, but they also let me pile up paint and get strong color and contrasts.”
Rankin relates that “the first spirit people just happened- I wasn’t expecting them or trying for them. But my imagination is filled with images of gentle, quiet spirits, and I loved it when they spontaneously emerged.”
Since that time, although she doesn’t deliberately set out to paint “spirit people”, she welcomes and elaborates them when they appear in her work.
Rankin explains, “I start my paintings with an abstract application of acrylics with a palette knife until a figure or face seems to be emerging. Then I bring it forward with contrasts between the spirit image and the background.“
Working from photographs, Rankin’s also paints more specific renditions of recognizable figures, faces and animals in her distinctive semi-abstract style.
In addition to Art Works Brevard, her work can be seen at NorthLight Studios in the River Arts District of Asheville, the Cindy Saadeh Gallery, Kingsport, TN, and on her website at www.casonrankin.com. For further information about Rankin’s show and demonstration, telephone Art Works, Brevard NC at (828) 553-1063, or email artworksbrevardnc@gmail.com.
