Current & Upcoming Exhibitions

2023-2024 Artist Support Grant Presentations

December 6—24, 2024

AOA is excited to host three concurrent exhibitions celebrating the 2023-2024 Artist Support Grant recipients:

Cole Barlow - Biodiversity of the Albemarle
Rebecca Davis - Personal Growth
Sandra Krueger - Re:Sound

Each individual will share a presentation representing the ways in which they utilized their Artist Support Grant funds from the N.C. Arts Council. The exhibitions will remain on view through December.

Join us during the First Friday Art Walk for an opening reception, from 4-7 PM.

  • Photographer Cole Barlow’s presentation features various natural scenes across the Albemarle area including Merchants Millpond, Nags Head Woods, Pasquotank River, Dismal Swamp State Park, and Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.

    The result of Barlow’s Artist Support Grant, the project is meant to showcase the natural areas that Northeastern North Carolina has to offer, even highlighting some of the biodiversity that is often overlooked in our area.

  • For Rebecca Davis’s Artist Support Grant, the painter elected to attend a watercolor workshop by a renowned professional artist for professional/personal growth as a watercolor artist. Focused on varied subject matter like landscapes and buildings, Davis will present a selection representative of this learning experience.

  • Conceived and curated by Sandra Krueger, Re:Sound is an innovative, collaborative art project featuring the talents of people and plants in Elizabeth City.

    This Artist Support Grant allowed the purchase of two Plant Wave interfaces and KORG mini synthesizers to record the electrical activity of a variety of plants, grown by the College of The Albemarle’s agribusiness department. By using the Plant Wave electrodes, the wave patterns were recorded using an oscilloscope from the physics department, and rendered a graphical representation of each plant’s activity. This activity was translated into sound via PlantWave digital envelopes and the KORG mini synthesizer by students at the College.

    Armed with a plant, a sound wave, and its unique “song,” the students at the College’s pottery shed created bespoke planters for each plant, inspired by the sine wave, the music, and/or the plant itself. Funds from the grant will be used to purchase enough clay and glaze for a dozen planters. Students in the visual arts department and its Art Club created 2D works to accompany the plant as a background, inspired by its various elements (sine wave, music, planter, and plant). With these plants, sine waves, songs, planters, and visual art accompaniment, the English classes and writing club created haiku or other short poetic reactions to the works of art.

    This single art project was shaped by roughly 100 participants along the way, representing the interconnected nature of people, plants, and our relationship to each other.

Paper, Pixels, and Paint - The Art of John Stiles

November 1—27, 2024

The creative oeuvre of the local artist John Stiles includes traditional drawing and painting techniques and contemporary digital tools like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Fresco, and Procreate—all used in the creation of the exhibition “Paper, Pixels, and Paint.” Stiles’s body of work, while showcasing his own creative signature, bears traces of the artist’s life growing up immersed in surf, skate, and punk cultures, as well as inspiration drawn from artists like Ed "Big Daddy Roth," Robert Williams, and Todd Schorr. The artist’s background in graphic design and illustration also plays a significant role in shaping his creative approach.

John Stiles’s first professional job was as an airbrush artist in his local shopping mall. After graduating college, he became an artist in the screen-printing industry, working for 14 years and for six different companies. He transitioned to education in 2011 and has taught as both a high school and college professor. He is currently an Associate Professor of Graphic Design at Elizabeth City State University. In addition, he does free-lance graphic design and illustration work for a myriad of different clients and works occasionally as a fine artist, caricature artist, and pumpkin carver.

Bryce Lankard: Drawn to Water

October 15—November 25, 2024

Photographer Bryce Lankard captures images from a goal of documenting life’s many emotional reactions that come with being human.

In Drawn to Water, viewers will find bodies of water—both literal and suggested through context—as a common thread connecting the series of black and white images, which form a thoughtful narrative on water’s significance in our lives, memories, and identities.

  • We are drawn to water for many reasons: for our health and survival, for spiritual rites and rituals, for athletic endeavors, and often for the pure pleasure of social engagement. Water cleanses and invigorates. It is both life-giving and an unstoppable force. In the heat of a southern summer it cools us and acts as a social focal point. Water attracts every race and social strata. It can be a place of solitude and lone meditation or a location where one lets down one’s guard (along with much clothing), to commune with strangers. Water motivates us to dare and cushions our fall.

    Having spent thirty years away from my native state, I returned to North Carolina in 2012 with an idea to rediscover this beloved place with fresh eyes. I found myself drawn to the old landmarks that have remained the bookmarks of my memory and discovered that water was the common thread among them. Flowing down out of the Blue Ridge Mountains and finding its way to the Atlantic Ocean, it meanders its way across my southern landscape. My youthful fantasies were of Huck Finn floating down the Mississippi and my realities were tubing down mountain streams in water so cold it turned your lips blue. I did build a raft once...It sunk.

    Undeniably, water is at the center of myriad political and environmental debates. In my own backyard it is under threat from offshore exploratory oil drilling, coal ash contamination and unchecked development. My interest in these images, however, is to examine the social significance of water in our lives. How deeply it is connected to memory, identity and a sense of place, how vital it is to protect. These photographs and first-person accounts capture the variety of human interactions found around beaches, lakes, and quarries, and along rivers, waterfalls, and swimming holes.

    -Bryce Lankard

Past Exhibitions

  • Not even Past: An Exhibition by Suzanne Scott Constantine and Lynne Scott Constantine

    September 6—October 27, 2024

    “The past is never dead. It’s not even past,” wrote William Faulkner in 1951. Moving to North Carolina sent Lynne and Suzanne on personal quests to understand what the state’s histories meant for them—for Suzanne, descended from early white settlers and growing up in Raleigh, and for Lynne, the daughter of Italian immigrants and growing up in New York. Not Even Past is an artistic reckoning with what they found. 

  • Mary Crutchfield Landmark Exhibition & Competition

    September 6—October 26, 2024

    Named in honor of a founding mother of AOA's predecessor, the Pasquotank Arts Council, the Mary Crutchfield Landmark Competition & Exhibition invites regional artists working in two-dimensional mediums to submit artworks depicting regional landmarks of their choice.

    Join us during the First Friday Art Walk in September for an opening reception and awards acknowledgments, from 4-7 PM.

  • Charmed by the Water Sprites

    June 7—July 31, 2024

    A duo show of artists Andrea Frank and Sarah Redpath, “Charmed by the Water Sprites” features paintings in oil and acrylic. The pair’s distinct but complementary styles take the viewer on a whimsical journey of the power and charms of the water, which they’ve likened to an almost-spiritual existence. Of the presentation, the artists said, “We have been charmed by the water sprites, the sirens’ songs - and we hope you will be too.”

  • Very Mary Art

    June 7—July 31, 2024

    Mary Crutchfield, who passed away earlier this year, was an internationally recognized artist whose commitment to art and community will continue to endure long past her life. Mary is remembered for her work in the arts, which she practiced for more than three decades, and as an advocate for those affected by domestic violence and abuse—particularly through the Albemarle Hopeline.

    The show featured around 100 of Mary’s works, across various mediums.

  • Doug Lane: A Memorial Retrospective

    June 7—July 31, 2024

    A veteran of the Navy and Coast Guard who settled locally, Doug Lane led a multifaceted artistic practice that centered on photography and graphic design, also spanning areas like ceramics, drawing, and woodworking. Doug was a member of the Elizabeth City Photo Club and is remembered for his home studio and classroom, where he often invited community members to collaborate and learn. The display at AOA, in the Everist Gallery, will represent the expansive nature of Doug’s creativity and the footprint he left behind.

  • ECSU Senior Showcase

    May 2—31, 2024

    Graphic design majors and upcoming graduates from Elizabeth City State University will present their senior showcase, featuring a range of artworks and designs representative of their curriculum and accomplishments. The show featured work by Lauren Jackson, Jakevin Kellogg, Jamie Parker, Andrew Ross, Emmie Self, Madison Vanover, and RaShad Wester.

  • Themes from Marsh to Sea

    April 5—May 31, 2024

    Regional creative groups including Albemarle Paint Out Painters, Cann Painting Pals, Perquimans Arts League Watercolor Club, Outer Banks Tuesday Painters, AOA Open Studio, and the Pocosin Arts Metal Gild will showcase their work in this multimedia group show. Enjoy works created as a product of environments “from marsh to sea,” representing these locals and their muses.

  • Art Explorations

    April 2024

    "Art Explorations" sees College of the Albemarle art students of artists and instructors Christina Weisner and Patrick Berran exhibiting works that are the product of their semester of learning. This multimedia presentation encompasses drawings, paintings, sculptures, and more by 10+ developing artists. Let their creativity fill your mind and inspire your own imagination when you experience their unique styles and thoughtful compositions.

  • Through Their Eyes: Work by K-12 Artists

    March 2024

    Celebrate the creativity of the younger generation in this exhibition of K-12 artists from local public schools! Watch our gallery come to life as these students proudly share the products of their school art classes, which includes a range of projects, prompts, and mediums.

  • From Soil to Beauty: An Exhibition of Ceramics and Flowers

    February 2—March 30, 2024

    The common threads between ceramics and flowers—both born from the soil—weave themselves into a narrative of beauty in this exhibition of work featuring students enrolled in the College of The Albemarle’s Continuing Education painting and ceramics courses. Floral compositions, sculpted vessels, and activations where the two subjects collide can be found on view, featuring the work from the following classes: 

    -Watercolors, Intermediate and Beyond with Peggy West  
    -Acrylic and Mixed Media Painting with Margie Sawyer 
    -Advanced Wheel Throwing with Jerry Murray  -Beginner Wheel Throwing with Christine Henniger 
    -Wheel Throwing with Ashley Paskov 
    -Beginning Watercolor Painting I & II with JudyLynn Hooser 

  • WOOD & FIBER: Extraordinary Objects from Humble Materials

    January 5—February 24, 2024

    Escape the cold and the post-holiday blues while enjoying the cozy atmosphere and warm textures fostered by works made from and inspired by the earth’s very own art supplies—wood and fibers. At the center of this group exhibition, AOA is thrilled to unveil its newest acquisition, a piece of history near and dear to us, the Capt'n Henry Chesson Quilt.

    Generously donated by the Chesson family, the former owners of our beloved home on Main Street during its days as a department store, the quilt epitomizes the exhibition’s tactile, earthen theme. Joining this historical focal point are contemporary works by regional artists, ranging from screen printing and photography to sculpture, wood turning, and beyond—including creations by Lynn James, Adam White, Bill Isel, Leslie Cornett, Mary Crutchfield, Tom Brennan, Trudy Riggens, Mark Hughes, Rebecca Davis, Peggy West, and Lina Ahs. 

  • Barbara Wachter: Breaking the Rules

    October-December, 2023

    The event of the COVID-19 pandemic led artist Barbara Wachter to a time of play and experimentation that allowed her to stray from her typical style. The works produced during this period come together to make up the exhibition “Breaking the Rules.”

    Wachter’s practice is one influenced by the ability to convey emotion through form. The artist works with the belief that art is a collaboration between the heart and the mind, thus exposing a piece of the soul.

  • Seeing Through Vivian Maier's Eyes

    October 5—6, 2023

    Enjoy a rare opportunity to see an exhibition of original vintage prints by the internationally acclaimed photographer Vivian Maier. Maier bought her first camera in France in 1950 and began in earnest a photographic practice encompassing over 150,000 images, mostly unprinted, left as negatives or undeveloped rolls of film. Of these, she left only about 6,000 lifetime prints. This exhibition represents an overview of her work and demonstrates her early penchant for themes she would explore throughout her life. 

    Curated by Christine Benoodt, Collection Manager, the Jeffrey Goldstein Vivian Maier Vintage Print Collection. 

  • Jeff Weekly: Illumination

    September-October, 2023

    In Jeff Weekley’s “Illumination” exhibition at Arts of the Albemarle his oil paintings were the embodiment of a lifetime designing and painting. As an image maker Jeff’s process if intuitive. He never has a story in mind, he prefers to leave that to the audience. In listening to the viewer he has found that no two stories/interpretations are ever the same. But always fascinating.

    Jeff utilizes photography to capture his models and Photoshop to create the concepts. This allows the process to be fluid often changing the concepts and elements many times until satisfied with the design, model pose, signifiers and color. Then he says, “the fun begins.”

  • John Shoemaker: Generate Prompt

    September 2023

    “Generate Prompt” is an exploration of material sciences, utilizing the art studio as a testing laboratory. By intersecting fine handcraft with the study of the structures, performance, and chemical properties of various matter, this exhibition investigates an arena in which artist and material collaborate. The raw materials are provided a level of autonomy to contribute to the formal aesthetic qualities in individual situations or experiments established; generating specimen, phenomenon, or illustration. Hand-fabricated glass is employed in this exhibition as an adaptable media, acting as reaction vessels, substrates, or specimen jars.

  • EAST5 ABSTRACT

    August 2023
    Experience the vibrant, expressive art of five regional East Coast artists working in areas of abstraction in this exhibition of works on canvas by Dale Corbin, Lynn Nash, Debbie Sauls, Laura Hughes, and Nora Crouch.

    Each featured artist intrigues through their own signature of markings, textures, gestures, and colors, creating a visual realm that leaves much room for the viewer's own imagination and interpretation.

Click here to find details about upcoming events, including visual arts workshops and more.

Want to become an AOA artist?

Our artists are chosen by a jury process which takes place regularly on a need basis. Please fill out our Artist Packet and bring us a copy, along with the selection of works you’d like to be considered. We do accept both images shared digitally and physical artworks for the jurying process, though we always appreciate having physical work to reference when possible.

Email us at visualarts@artsaoa.com with any questions or to submit your jury material.